Special Eurobarometer 327: Patient Safety and quality of healthcare

In the light of the importance of patient safety, this Eurobarometer survey has been conducted with the main objective of exploring Europeans' perceptions regarding patient safety and their attitudes toward the quality of healthcare in their country and cross-border. Since patient safety is such a serious concern, the Council of the European Union recently adopted the recommendation on patient safety, including the prevention and control of healthcare-associated infections (hereafter referred to as the Council recommendations). In brief, these recommendations cover measures to help prevent and reduce the occurrence of adverse events in healthcare, such as: • Greater reporting of patient safety events. It is recommended that more comprehensive reporting on adverse events take place, in a blame-free manner. This will help monitor and control patient safety, but also provide data on the effectiveness of implemented measures. • Education and training of healthcare workers, focusing on patient safety. Patient safety should be embedded in the education and training of all healthcare workers, including on-the-job training and the development of core competencies in patient safety. • Greater awareness of patient safety amongst patients. Patients themselves need to be aware of the authorities responsible for patient safety, the patient safety measures and standards which are in place, and available complaints procedures. • Standardisation of patient safety measures, definitions and terminology. The Member States are at different levels of development and implementation of patient safety strategies. It is recommended that common terminology, as well as patient safety standards and best practices be developed and shared amongst Member States.

The results by volumes are distributed as follows:

• Volume A: Countries
• Volume AA: Groups of countries
• Volume A' (AP): Trends
• Volume AA' (AAP): Trends of groups of countries
• Volume B: EU/socio-demographics
• Volume B' (BP) : Trends of EU/ socio-demographics
• Volume C: Country/socio-demographics

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  Researchers may also contact GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences: https://www.gesis.org/eurobarometer