February 2014

The Commission Patient Safety and Quality of Care Working Group met in February to discuss the 2014 agenda. Two sub-groups established in late 2013 drafted recommendations on reporting and learning systems and education of health professionals where EPF contributed, including specific sections on the role of patients and families.

This year we also continued our input into the “Patient Safety and Quality of Care” project or “PaSQ” Joint Action (JA) by evaluating the implementation of safe clinical practices in 17 countries.

EPF contributed the patients’ view to some of them. We will also produce a paper in 2015 on patient involvement and empowerment in patient safety based on the consultation with our members and the good examples contributed by the project partners and stakeholders.  More information on PASQ website: www.pasq.eu.

In June, the European Commission published long-awaited reports on patient safety and quality of care – links are all available here.

Later in October, the European Commission Expert Panel on Effective Ways of Investing in Health approved the “Future EU Agenda on quality of health care with a special emphasis on patient safety” (link). As part of the working group that developed this report, EPF emphasised the importance of patient-centred healthcare systems, as patients’ views, preferences and experiences could constitute an indicator to measure the quality of care.

In December, the Council of the EU adopted the conclusions on patient safety and quality of care (link, PDF) which EPF welcomed positively. The text encourages the "participation and empowerment of patients, families and their informal caregivers, as well as patient organisations, through evidence-based and unbiased provision of information and education, and promote patients' participation in decision-making in the healthcare process in order to contribute to the prevention of adverse events."