Patient safety

is our dedicated website to all things related to patient safety. Explore patient safety theory, learn about the NHS patient safety syllabus, share ideas for QI and get summaries of the latest alerts and reports.

News

Optimising electronic prescribing and medicine administration (EPMA) systems – patient safety spotlight

30 April 2026

Safe and effective dose management in EPMA systems varies significantly across the UK, posing a significant risk of harm to infants, children and young people. This blog summarises an RCPCH/NPPG Joint Medicines Committee position statement that outlines the key factors leading to variation in these ...

Document

Safe and effective dose management in electronic prescribing and medicines administration systems

This position statement is made on behalf of the Joint RCPCH and NPPG Medicines Committee. The Medicines Committee is a collaborative standing committee with joint membership between Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) and Neonatal and Paediatric Pharmacy Group (NPPG).

Drugs and medicines

Data

Digital health

Governance and regulation

Quality improvement

Patient safety

News

Safety considerations of antibiotic choice and route in children – patient safety spotlight

20 February 2026

In this personal practice blog, Dr Charlotte Fuller and Dr Sanjay Patel highlight the tools and initiatives available to help paediatric teams balance the need for prompt antibiotics when faced with a child with suspected infection, versus the risks associated with broad-spectrum intravenous antibio...

News

Driving safer transfusions with SHOT - patient safety spotlight

13 November 2025

Since 1996, the UK’s Serious Hazards of Transfusion (SHOT) haemovigilance scheme has analysed safety incidents, revealing that children are disproportionately affected by errors and reactions.

Resource

Paediatric patient safety partnership RCPCH-NIHR SafetyNet - webinar recording 2025

RCPCH and NIHR Patient Safety Research Collaboration Network, SafetyNet, co-hosted this webinar on World Patient Safety Day on 17 September 2025. Experts such as Dr Peter Lachman considered the challenges in paediatric patient safety and how to respond to them. We also gave an overview of how both o...

Patient safety

News

Paediatric Early Warning System (PEWS) updates from the UK nations - patient safety spotlight

23 June 2025

Colleagues share the journey of the PEWS programmes in Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales, and England, reflecting on standardising across the many and varied types of units, and future plans for improvement across the nations.

News

Learning from Ryan’s Rule in Australia - patient safety guest blog

28 April 2025

Professor Nitin Kapur, who spoke at this year's RCPCH Conference, reflects on the implementation of Ryan’s Rule in Queensland a decade ago - as we here in the UK tentatively roll out Martha’s rule in our units.

News

From the RCPCH Conference 2025 – patient safety spotlight

23 April 2025

A month on from the College’s conference in Glasgow (and online), our patient safety team of clinicians and staff recall the many inspiring and practical presentations and workshops on this theme.

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Martha's Rule - about

Martha’s Rule, now being piloted in England, enables staff, patients and their families to seek an independent medical review if they feel their concerns about a patient’s care are not being adequately addressed. This page explains the Rule and how it will be implemented across the UK, and will be r...

Patient safety

News

On Martha's Rule - patient safety spotlight

24 February 2025

By establishing patients' right to an independent review, this new rule now being tested in pilot sites across the country, can improve our ability as health professionals to recognise and respond to deterioration. We look at what this means for infants, children and young people.