Patient Safety, Governance, Leadership and Infection Prevention and Control

Avoidable harm in health care kills and harms millions of people worldwide every year. Yet while there is a wealth of literature on patient safety as a discipline, and policies and guidance at international, national and local levels, this continues to persist in countries at all stages of economic development. Within this context, effective infection prevention and control (IPC) has a key role to play in ensuring patients receive safe care. This chapter will initially define patient safety and avoidable harm, setting out the scale of the problem in health care and explaining why this continues to persist. It will then outline the need to take a systems approach to addressing the underlying causes of avoidable harm, including a focus on the people within the system and how best to influence their behaviour, considering two specific IPC examples in relation to this. Finally, the chapter will close by considering some of the key changes needed to support a shift towards a systems approach to patient safety and IPC.