Introduction to Patient Safety in Primary Care course for GPs



This session will provide an overview of key patient safety issues and challenges in primary care. It will also explain why improving patient safety requires us to look at the healthcare system, not just to focus on an individual healthcare provider.
This session was reviewed by Khyati Bakhai and last updated in December 2020.
Learning Objectives
By the end of this session you will be able to:
- Recognise how an understanding of patient safety relates to competent performance as a GP
- Identify why blaming an individual healthcare provider when an incident occurs will impede the ability to learn and increase the chances that the same incident will recur
- Explain what is meant by the ‘systems approach’ to understanding human error and incidents
- Summarise the evidence-base showing the scale and types of incidents that occur in primary care
- Identify the organisations and national initiatives that aim to improve patient safety in the NHS
Every year millions of patients are treated safely in the NHS. However, for a minority of patients, errors and incidents occur which lead to patient harm.
Dr Jane Carthey is a Patient Safety and Human Factors Specialist who has worked in the NHS for 13 years, both at a local Trust level and for a national agency. Dr Carthey has applied human factors methodologies to understand the causes of incidents in healthcare in acute and primary care settings. Her expertise includes incident reporting, organisational and team safety culture, observational data collection, incident investigation, prospective risk assessment and improving communication between patients and healthcare staff when things go wrong.


Christine has worked as a GP in Nottingham since 1988.
Through her undergraduate work at the University of Nottingham as Community Sub Dean and postgraduate work as part of Health Education East Midlands, she has been involved in the delivery of education to both medical and multi-professional audiences with a particular emphasis on Quality Improvement and Patient Safety.
She represents Vale of Trent on the RCGP Council.

- Preconception Care course for General Practitioner...
- Posted By eIntegrity Healthcare e-Learning
- Posted Date: 2023-12-06
- Location:Online
- This session will introduce you to the concepts of preconception care, including opportunities for p...
- Injury Prevention course for General Practitioners...
- Posted By eIntegrity Healthcare e-Learning
- Posted Date: 2023-12-06
- Location:Online
- This session aims to raise awareness of the causes, risk factors and context of unintentional child ...
- Dental Health Promotion course for General Practit...
- Posted By eIntegrity Healthcare e-Learning
- Posted Date: 2023-12-06
- Location:Online
- This session aims to enhance your knowledge and skills regarding oral health and factors that predis...
- Obesity Prevention in Children course for General ...
- Posted By eIntegrity Healthcare e-Learning
- Posted Date: 2023-12-06
- Location:Online
- This session examines the key lifestyle areas that are important when tackling obesity prevention, a...
- Health Promotion in Pregnancy: Obesity course for ...
- Posted By eIntegrity Healthcare e-Learning
- Posted Date: 2023-12-06
- Location:Online
- This session aims to raise awareness regarding obesity in pregnancy and its contribution to increase...