Teaching patient safety and human factors in undergraduate nursing curricula in England : a pilot survey

Patient safety is a key priority for all healthcare systems, and there is growing recognition for the need to educate tomorrow’s nurses about the role of human factors in reducing avoidable harm to patients. A pilot survey was sent to 20 schools of nursing in England to explore the teaching of patient safety and human factors. All 13 schools that responded (65% response rate) stated that patient safety was covered in their curricula and was allocated more than 4 hours; all the classes included human factors. Only two respondents indicated their teaching to be multi-professional. Awareness of the World Health Organization’s multiprofessional patient safety curriculum guide was poor. Faculties also seemed unaware that the Institute for Healthcare Improvement provides free online patient safety modules for students and that there is a global network of student patient safety chapters.