Annual report sets out progress in our first six months

It provides a useful overview of our governance, leadership, staff arrangements and remuneration.

The Health Services Safety Investigations Body (HSSIB) was formally established on 1 October 2023 as an Arm’s Length Body of the Department of Health and Social Care.

Key highlights include our very first investigation report which looked at safety management systems, our commitment to working collaboratively with other patient safety organisations and the importance of family and patient engagement in our safety investigations.

Safety management systems

We published eight safety investigation reports in our first six months, starting with Safety management systems (SMS). This investigation explored the principles that support a proactive and integrated approach to managing safety. It included insights from other safety-critical industries and recommended that health services learn from them. The report also identified some of the opportunities to join up healthcare systems and work towards a co-ordinated SMS approach.

Ted Baker, Chair of the Health Services Safety Investigations Body. — Ted Baker, Chair of HSSIB.

Dr Ted Baker, Chair of HSSIB, says: “The challenges currently faced by health services are complex and do not have simple solutions. What is clear though is that any solution capable of bringing about the much-needed innovation and change will have safety at its core. We will continue to champion changes both in safety culture and how safety is managed by health services.”

Commitment to collaboration

HSSIB has a unique role and remit within the patient safety landscape and to achieve our aims, we will continue to work closely with the rest of the patient safety system. Since our establishment, we have seen some encouraging examples of collaborative working, ranging from our inclusion on the National Quality Board to joint statements with the Patient Safety Commissioner.

Dr Rosie Benneyworth, Interim Chief Executive at HSSIB.

Listening to patient voices

Family and patient engagement will be a core component of our safety investigations as HSSIB.

Dr Rosie Benneyworth, Interim Chief Executive, says: “Patient voices are vital to improvement, not just because they may have been harmed but because patients, and those close to them, have experienced safety from a different perspective. Their story is vital in understanding why things have gone wrong. They have experienced how healthcare is actually provided, not how we often imagine it is provided.”