Global Patient Safety Action Plan 2021 2030

Patient safety is fundamental to the provision of health care in all settings. However, avoidable adverse events, errors and risks associated with health care remain major challenges for patient safety globally. The Seventy-second World Health Assembly in 2019 adopted resolution WHA72.6 on global action on patient safety and mandated for development of a global patient safety action plan. This global action plan was adopted by Seventy-Fourth World Health Assembly in 2021 with a vision of “a world in which no one is harmed in health care, and every patient receives safe and respectful care, every time, everywhere”. The purpose of the action plan is to provide strategic direction for all stakeholders for eliminating avoidable harm in health care and improving patient safety in different practice domains through policy actions on safety and quality of health services, as well as for implementation of recommendations at the point of care. The action plan provides a framework for countries to develop their respective national action plans on patient safety, as well to align existing strategic instruments for improving patient safety in all clinical and health-related programmes.

The first-ever WHO Report on Patient Safety, the "Global Patient Safety Report 2024", offers a comprehensive overview of patient safety implementation worldwide. Aligned with the Global Patient Safety Action Plan 2021–2030, this report explores policies, strategies, and initiatives shaping safety in health care. From analyses of country actions to in-depth summaries of burden of unsafe care, it provides crucial insights for policy-makers, health care leaders, researchers, and patient safety advocates. Explore how nations address challenges, learn from case studies and feature stories, and gain deeper understanding in priority areas for action. This report serves as a vital resource for fostering global collaboration and advancing patient safety in health care. The contents of this report encompass: - An analysis that compiles and describes actions taken by countries, including the summary of these actions across different WHO regions and income levels based on Member State survey. - An in-depth summary presenting evidence on the overall burden of unsafe health care practices, viewed broadly as well as within specific population groups, clinical domains, and according to major sources of harm. - Case studies showcasing how different countries are learning and developing patient safety solutions within their unique contexts, along with feature stories highlighting key global initiatives and interventions in patient safety. - Comparative analyses offering deeper insights into crucial areas such as patient safety policies, legal frameworks, patient involvement, educational initiatives, reporting and learning systems, and the involvement of various stakeholders.

The Patient safety rights charter is a key resource intended to support the implementation of the Global Patient Safety Action Plan 2021–2030: Towards eliminating avoidable harm in health care. The Charter aims to outline patients’ rights in the context of safety and promotes the upholding of these rights, as established by international human rights standards, for everyone, everywhere, at all times.

Patient harm due to unsafe care is a leading cause of death and disability worldwide and most of this harm is avoidable. Harm due to medicines and therapeutic options accounts for nearly 50% of preventable harm in medical care. The main objective of this policy brief is to support successful implementation of the third WHO Global Patient Safety Challenge: Medication Without Harm, and to advocate for prioritizing medication safety in health care. It will also support implementation of the Global Patient Safety Action Plan 2021-2030, on policies relating to eliminating avoidable harm in health care and ensuring the safety of clinical processes. Solutions that can be implemented in countries are proposed under four domains: the patient and the public; health and care workers; medicines as products; and systems and practices of medication within the three action areas: high-risk situations, polypharmacy and transitions of care. This document is a resource for policy-makers, health workers, health care leaders, academic institutions and other relevant institutions, to understand the global burden of medication errors, address and prevent medication-related harm at all levels of health care, aligned with the strategic plan of the third WHO Global Patient Safety Challenge: Medication Without Harm.

This unique and engaging open access title provides a compelling and ground-breaking account of the patient safety movement in the United States, told from the perspective of one of its most prominent leaders, and arguably the movement’s founder, Lucian L. Leape, MD. Covering the growth of the field from the late 1980s to 2015, Dr. Leape details the developments, actors, organizations, research, and policy-making activities that marked the evolution and major advances of patient safety in this time span. In addition, and perhaps most importantly, this book not only comprehensively details how and why human and systems errors too often occur in the process of providing health care, it also promotes an in-depth understanding of the principles and practices of patient safety, including how they were influenced by today’s modern safety sciences and systems theory and design. Indeed, the book emphasizes how the growing awareness of systems-design thinking and the self-education and commitment to improving patient safety, by not only Dr. Leape but a wide range of other clinicians and health executives from both the private and public sectors, all converged to drive forward the patient safety movement in the US. Making Healthcare Safe is divided into four parts: I. In the Beginning describes the research and theory that defined patient safety and the early initiatives to enhance it. II. Institutional Responses tells the stories of the efforts of the major organizations that began to apply the new concepts and make patient safety a reality. Most of these stories have not been previously told, so this account becomes their histories as well. III. Getting to Work provides in-depth analyses of four key issues that cut across disciplinary lines impacting patient safety which required special attention. IV. Creating a Culture of Safety looks to the future, marshalling the best thinking about what it will take to achieve the safe care we all deserve. Captivatingly written with an “insider’s” tone and a major contribution to the clinical literature, this title will be of immense value to health care professionals, to students in a range of academic disciplines, to medical trainees, to health administrators, to policymakers and even to lay readers with an interest in patient safety and in the critical quest to create safe care.

Regular physical activity is proven to help prevent and treat noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) such as heart disease stroke diabetes and breast and colon cancer. It also helps to prevent hypertension overweight and obesity and can improve mental health quality of life and well-being. In addition to the multiple health benefits of physical activity societies that are more active can generate additional returns on investment including a reduced use of fossil fuels cleaner air and less congested safer roads. These outcomes are interconnected with achieving the shared goals political priorities and ambition of the Sustainable Development Agenda 2030. The new WHO global action plan to promote physical activity responds to the requests by countries for updated guidance and a framework of effective and feasible policy actions to increase physical activity at all levels. It also responds to requests for global leadership and stronger regional and national coordination and the need for a whole-of-society response to achieve a paradigm shift in both supporting and valuing all people being regularly active according to ability and across the life course. The action plan was developed through a worldwide consultation process involving governments and key stakeholders across multiple sectors including health sports transport urban design civil society academia and the private sector.

This book examines the idea of a fundamental entitlement to health and healthcare from a human rights perspective. The volume is based on a particular conceptual reasoning that balances critical thinking and pragmatism in the context of a universal right to health. Thus, the primary focus of the book is the relationship or contrast between rights-based discourse/jurisprudential arguments and real-life healthcare contexts. The work sets out the constraints that are imposed on a universal right to health by practical realities such as economic hardship in countries, lack of appropriate governance, and lack of support for the implementation of this right through appropriate resource allocation. It queries the degree to which the existence of this legally enshrined right and its application in instruments such as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) can be more than an ephemeral aspiration but can, actually, sustain, promote, and instil good practice. It further asks if social reality and the inequalities that present themselves therein impede the implementation of laudable human rights, particularly within marginalised communities and cadres of people. It deliberates on what states and global bodies do, or could do, in practical terms to ensure that such rights are moved beyond the aspirational and become attainable and implementable. Divided into three parts, the first analyses the notion of a universal inalienable right to health(care) from jurisprudential, anthropological, legal, and ethical perspectives. The second part considers the translation of international human rights norms into specific jurisdictional healthcare contexts. With a global perspective it includes countries with very different legal, economic, and social contexts. Finally, the third part summarises the lessons learnt and provides a pathway for future action. The book will be an invaluable resource for students, academics, and policymakers working in the areas of health law and policy, and international human rights law.