Curriculum guide to support/promote teaching of patient safety in universities and schools in the fields of dentistry, medicine, midwifery, nursing and pharmacy.

This curriculum guide was developed to assist in the teaching of patient safety in universities and schools in the fields of dentistry, medicine, midwifery, nursing and pharmacy. It also supports the ongoing training of all health care professionals.

Part A is aimed at health care educators. It supports them with knowledge and tools and helps them develop the skills necessary for implementing patient safety education in their institutions. Part B addresses health care educators and students. It contains 11 ready-to-teach, topic-based, patient safety programmes that can be used as a whole or on a per topic basis.

The topics covered within Part B of this curriculum are: (i) what is patient safety?; (ii) why applying human factors is important for patient safety; (iii) understanding systems and the effect of complexity on patient care; (iv) being an effective team player; (v) learning from errors to prevent harm; (vi) understanding and managing clinical risk; (vii) using quality-improvement methods to improve care; (viii) engaging with patients and carers; (ix) infection prevention and control; (x) patient safety and invasive procedures; and (xi) improving medication safety.