A Pact For Patient Safety

On 15 October, Cristina Padeanu attended the Irish Patients Association’seventto launch the Pact for Patient Safety, an initiative by patients and for patients. The pledge establishes ten key commitments for health authorities and policy-makers to better protect patients from preventable harm.

“The Pact is a resource for patients and citizens throughout Europe and beyond as it generates awareness of safety in healthcare institutions. It will also support patients and their representatives to drive accountability for the 10 commitments of policy-makers” said Member of the European Parliament Séan Kelly (EPP, Ireland) who hosted the event.

The initiative adds to a number of actions taken by the European Commission and different stakeholders to raise the awareness on patient safety and the need for a high quality patient-centred care at the European level. EPF played an important role in bringing the input from its members into the work of the European Commission, and making it accessible to patients (see link).

Martin Seychell, the representative of the European Commission’s DG SANCO, emphasised the openness of Commission to public involvement which represents the opportunity for a continuous contact between the public and the institution. EPF sees it positively in the discussion around patient safety and quality of care. “Given that 1 in 10 patients are currently harmed while receiving care, it is time that patients’ demand for safer care is heard”, added Stephen MacMahon, Director of the Irish Patients Association and leader of the initiative.

The different players involved in these actions hope that the European Council will now turn its attention towards these issues. They believe that the European Council meeting in December 2014 could place an emphasis on the importance of patient safety and calls members states for further action to reduce the adverse events and tailor quality patient-centred healthcare systems.

More information about EPF work in Patient Safety is available here.