World Patient Safety Day 2025
Every year on 17 September the World Health Organisation (WHO) campaigns for the need to improve patient safety around the world. World Patient Safety Day this year carries the theme of “safe care for every newborn and every child”.
Who established this event?
WHO is an agency of the United Nations, specifically dedicated to promoting health on a global scale, with a particular focus on vulnerable communities.
Additionally, WHO takes international actions in the event of global health emergencies, such as the COVID-19 pandemic or the spread of other disease like Zika in other regions of the world. You can read more about the WHO and its achievements here.
One of WHO’s resolutions – known as WHA 72.6 – establishes patient safety as a global health priority, highlighting the importance of observing World Patient Safety Day and to focus on the health of specific groups of people.
What does this year’s theme focus on?
This year’s focus for World Patient Safety Day, is a particularly vulnerable group. Children and newborns have health needs that are specific to them and harm can be done if these needs are not met.
Children and newborns are also dependent on adults to provide them suitable healthcare and they cannot speak up for themselves. Lastly, even single safety incidents affecting children and newborns could have lifelong consequences.
Reasearch indicates that much more could be done improve the patient safety of children and newborns. For instance, the rates of harmful events in health carehave been shown to be as high as 53.8% in general care settings and 91.6% in intensive care settings for children. Furthermore, it is estimated that 97% of harmful incidents in newborn care are preventable.
Things that can harm a child or newborn’s health include delays in receiving a diagnosis for a health condition, giving a patient the wrong or unsuitable amount of a medication and unsafe childbirth conditions. Therefore, WHO emphasises “patient safety from the start”, to ensure that children have a healthy start to life and better health outcomes as they grow and develop.
The objectives of World Patient Safety Day 2025
At the core of World Patient Safety Day 2025 are four objectives:
- Raising awareness on a global scale of safety risks in healthcare settings that are specific to children and newborns. These include the distinct needs that children have, along with their families and caregivers.
- Motivating governments, organisations and health care services to act by establishing effective strategies to provide children and newborns with safer care.
- Encouraging education and awareness so that families, caregivers and children themselves can partake in their own care.
- Increasing and strengthening research on safer care for children and newborns.
In order to accomplish these objectives, WHO will be running campaigns and events and lighting up landmarks in orange. Read more about the cause here.
We care about patient safety
Healthwatch values and prioritises patient safety as well. As such, we are committed to listening to patient feedback and ensuring that decision makers hear this to improve local services.
If you would like to share your views on a local service, including any patient safety concerns for yourself or a loved one, you can fill in this quick survey. Alternatively, you can get in touch with us via email or by giving us a call.
