Everything has changed: After we announced Patient Powered Safety 2020 our world has been turned upside down. We are social distancing from all those who form normally our networks and try to cope with the anxieties of this new and brutal disease COVID-19.
And then again Everything is still the same: Safety is more than ever a challenge. Hospital acquired infections do now affect patients and staff. In a world where all systems have been changed and familiarity has been removed errors are more likely not less likely to happen.
In this context I am therefore convinced that we are doing the right thing by going ahead with Patient Powered Safety. It will be online and not face-to-face. People will have to bring their own chair and food to their own screen. But we will be able to talk about safety, the challenges, the barriers and some really positive starting points on how to change the way that people can get involved in the safety of their own care and those that are close to them.
With our team in Bangor we are currently working on a number of tools. We had hoped to invite you all to help us and progress one of them - ways to make the UK's key risk assessment tool for acute illness called the National Early Warning Score available to people. Workshops online are not easy - but we are hosting a round table with tech companies to debate some of the pros and cons of flattening the hierarchy between healthcare professionals and those with medical needs.
And we are still hoping that people will submit their experience and ideas for improvement for our poster session.
Hope to see you there. And more than ever: Keep safe!
