Patient safety in an english pre-registration nursing curriculum
Section snippets
Background/ literature
Patient safety is defined as freedom from harm whilst receiving healthcare (DoH, 2000). Estimates of the frequency of patient safety incidents (PSI) vary from 3% to 16% of hospital admissions. The DoH (2000) estimated that 850,000 patients suffered PSIs, resulting in £2 billion extra expenditure. The vast majority of PSIs are categorised as preventable; nurses are the last line of defense between the healthcare system and the patient (Reason, 2000). There is considerable evidence that patient
Study aims
The study explored patient safety in an English pre-registration degree nursing curriculum, based on the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) 2002 curriculum guidelines. Study objectives were to:
- 1.
Identify patient safety themes in the curriculum (formal and informal).
- 2.
Explore where and how patient safety themes are taught.
- 3.
Examine the assessment of patient safety in theory and practice.
- 4.
Explore factors in the educational milieu that affect the development of students’ knowledge, attitudes and
Findings
Analysis of data from students, educators and key stakeholders identified each group’s perceptions of patient safety and its place in the curriculum and practice. Perspectives of what is regarded as patient safety and what constituted threats to safety varied. Patient safety was not explicitly addressed in the curriculum, which focussed on the related concepts of safe practice, fitness for practice and risk. The educational milieu was characterised as defensive and closed, and as having an
Discussion
The finding that patient safety is not explicitly addressed in the pre-registration nursing curriculum is congruent with the limited amount of evidence in this field by Maddox et al., 2001, Aron and Headrick, 2002, Stevens, 2002, Weinger et al., 2003. Analysis of the current Nursing and Midwifery Council curriculum guidelines for pre-registration nursing education in the UK provides a rationale for the lack of emphasis on patient safety in the formal curriculum. The NMC, 2002 document outlining
Conclusions
The curriculum focus on the related, but not equivalent concepts of safe practice, competency, health and safety, safe environment and risk, rather than patient safety, reflects the NMC, 2002 curriculum directive. Curriculum guidance needs to be revised to reflect the primacy of patient safety in contemporary clinical practice and ensure that patient safety becomes a major, explicit theme developed consistently throughout healthcare professional curricula. Teaching, learning and assessment
Acknowledgement
This study was funded by a School of Nursing, Midwifery & Social Work Pump Priming Fund award.
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2018, Nurse Education TodayCitation Excerpt :Despite the increasing focus on patient safety in the clinical setting, patient safety content needs to be afforded greater significance, and be clearly and explicitly located in the undergraduate nursing curricula (Stevens, 2002; Weinger et al., 2003; Tella et al., 2014). In fact, previous researchers have identified a gap between our knowledge of the extent and nature of university nurse education and clinical practice relevant to patient safety (Attree et al., 2008; Vaismoradi et al., 2011). Patient safety is defined as, “the reduction of risk of unnecessary harm associated with healthcare to an acceptable minimum” (Runciman, Hibbert, Thomson, Van Der Shaaf, Sherman & Lewalle, 2009, p. 19; World Health Organization, 2009, p. 15).