Patient Safety Partners

In 2019 the NHS published the Patient Safety Strategy, which highlighted the need for patients to be involved with the surveillance and management of patient safety framework for involving patients in patient safety.

Mid and South Essex Integrated Care Board have now appointment two members of the public to be Patient Safety Partners who will be highly involved in the organisation’s safety culture. The Patient Safety Partners will attend committees and meetings across the Integrated Care Board, and will be involved in patient safety, and training for staff members around patient safety.

Sarah Lamb

Hello, my name is Sarah, and I am one of the new Patient Safety Partners for Mid and South Essex Integrated Care Board! I’m very excited to begin this new role and to represent the patient and community voice within the Integrated Care Board.

I live in Chelmsford and in 2021 I graduated as a mature student from Anglia Ruskin University with a first-class honours degree in Policing and Criminal Justice. Not to bore anyone, but my dissertation examined the differences in mental healthcare offered within prisons, within forensic psychiatric units, versus the ‘gold standard’ of community based mental healthcare.

I have multiple health conditions and disabilities, which has meant I have spent a lot of time at the GP surgery, having hospital appointments, operations, and subsequent hospital admissions. My experiences as a patient, along with my passion for helping people, meant that as soon as I saw the advert for the PSP role, I knew I had to apply. I look forward to jointly working with members of the public and the ICB as a Patient Safety Partner.

Joanne Foley

Hello, my name is Jo, and I will be representing the ‘voice of the patient’ in one of the new roles of Patient Safety Partner for Mid and South Essex Integrated Care Board, in the development of our local NHS Integrated Care System.

My motivation for taking this new role on was due to my experience of our local health services from both a health service ‘provider’ and health service user perspective.

I have recently retired from working as a nurse for 39 years in the NHS, and I wanted to continue to put my experience, skills, and knowledge to good use. I have also lived in Chelmsford for 35 years and have used our local health services, both in the hospital and community setting, and will continue to do so due to a chronic health condition. Therefore, being involved and helping in this role, in transforming and improving patient safety in our local health services ticked all the boxes for me.

What we do

The Mid and South Essex Patient Safety Partners are actively involved in the design of safer healthcare at all levels across a range of local health and care organisations. Patient Safety Partners work with the ICB to ensure that they prioritise the safety requirements of patients, maximising the things that go right and minimising the things that go wrong.

As Patient Safety Partners, we work closely with the Integrated Care Board Quality Team, by:

Attending the Integrated Care Board’s Quality Committee and Mid and South Essex System Quality Group and other strategic patient safety related meetings.
Supporting the safety training of staff.
Helping develop patient safety information resources.
Being part of project teams working to improve safe care and systems.
Helping the system to understand what they do well and how they can do more from a safety perspective from a patient’s point of view.
Supporting the safety team when reviewing incidents and supporting learning from incidents.

Patient Safety Partners help the Integrated Care Board teams to listen to and work with local residents, carers, and families, to improve patient safety across Mid and South Essex. Patient Safety Partners actively work with Integrated Care Board staff to design safer healthcare throughout our area, to gather insights from local people and communities and challenge the Integrated Care Board to ensure they learn and change how they work to improve the health and wellbeing of our local people.

Patient Safety Partners are not employees of the Integrated Care Board and are encouraged to claim involvement payments for their time and out-of-pocket expenses when the Integrated Care Board confirms that the task profile meets the role four definition Patient Safety Partners Involvement Policy.

For more information about the role, please visit the Patient Safety Partners page on the NHS England website.