Kick-off of the Joint Action on Patient Safety and Quality of Care

The “Patient Safety and Quality of Care” or “PaSQ” Joint Action (JA) has officially started with the kick-off conference in Denmark, 24-25 May. This three-year Joint Action is led by the French Haute Autorité de Santé (HAS) and EPF will be actively involved in several key work packages.
EPF’s role is at the core of the Joint Action as one of the objectives of the project is to promote patients’ empowerment and patient involvement in patient safety and healthcare quality. Our tasks in the work packages of the JA include the identification of existing and proven good practices in patient safety and quality of care focusing on patient empowerment and involvement, and identification of strategies for improving quality of healthcare through patient empowerment and involvement. We are also involved in building network sustainability and effective dissemination. “What is ground-breaking is that the Action explicitly recognises the key role played by patients – and their families – in improving safety and quality, whether in hospitals or in the primary care context. We look forward to engaging the collective expertise and experience of our members in the next three years to collect good practices and ensure the patients’ perspective is central to the outcomes of this Joint Action”, said Kaisa Immonen-Charalambous, Senior Policy Adviser at EPF.

The overall aim of the project is to create a permanent platform for future cooperation between Member States in the area of patient safety and quality of care. The expected results are: to support Member States in the implementation of the Council Recommendation on patient safety; to initiate cooperation on quality of healthcare; and to facilitate the sharing of good practices in patient involvement.

The Action gets together 27 EU member States, plus Norway, candidate countries, and a number of stakeholder organisations representing various professional groups – doctors, nurses, dentists, health and hospital managers as well as international organisations.

The JA will now start its work in earnest, and the work packages will work according to their specific programmes for the next months.

Updates will be provided – for further information please contact Kaisa Immonen-Charalambous.

Click here to read the work EPF has done in terms of Patient Safety and Quality of care.