Inaugural Patients for Patient Safety Workshop
The first Patients for Patient Safety Workshop was held in London in November 2005 and brought together a group of 21 patients and patient safety advocates, whose experience establishes them as committed patient safety champions. Participants were drawn from 19 different countries and were selected following a world wide call for expressions of interest.
The group spent four days together sharing experiences, knowledge and hopes. These four days provided intense and powerful discussions. A facilitator worked with the group to help participants to find the positive core in their experiences as a base for building on what works, rather than staying focused on problems or negative past experiences.
The group began to build the foundations of the Patients for Patient Safety ‘home’. Key opinion leaders in patient safety were invited to join the group, gave informal presentations and had open discussion with the patient champions.
The workshop helped create a vision and a great feeling of hope which is embedded in the statement produced by the champions, the London Declaration [pdf 59kb]. Although the group represented a diverse set of countries, regions, cultures and challenges, participants were joined by a common commitment to preventing tragedies of health care harm, and the belief that patients and consumers have something very important to contribute.