System Safety
About the programme
The System Safety Improvement Programme supports the development of safer systems and stronger approaches to learning and improvement across health and care.
The Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (PSIRF) sets out the NHS approach to developing and maintaining effective systems and processes for responding to patient safety incidents for the purpose of learning and improving patient safety. PSIRF represents a significant shift in the way the NHS responds to patient safety incidents, with a focus on compassionate engagement and involvement, systems-based approaches to learning, proportionate responses and supportive oversight focused on improvement.
Building on the implementation of PSIRF, the 2026/27 PSIRF Insight to Improvement programme moves beyond implementation and focuses on developing the infrastructure needed to translate insight from systems-based learning responses into sustainable improvement.
The programme aims to strengthen the connections between patient safety and improvement, helping organisations and systems understand their existing infrastructure, identify gaps and opportunities, and develop the conditions needed for learning to lead to meaningful and sustainable improvement.
Programme Ambitions
The overarching ambition of the PSIRF Insight to Improvement Programme is to develop the infrastructure needed to further enable safety improvement following systems-based learning responses across the NHS.
The programme focuses on understanding and strengthening the infrastructure that supports improvement. This includes identifying key leaders, mapping existing systems to understand gaps and opportunities, connecting people and building relationships, developing improvement capability, and supporting improvement-focused planning.
Key Principles
The programme is focused on creating the conditions that enable learning from patient safety incidents to lead to sustainable improvement.
Our approach includes:
- strengthening connections between patient safety and improvement teams and strategies;
- supporting a systems-based approach to learning and improvement;
- promoting consistency while enabling local flexibility and ownership;
- strengthening leadership, governance and oversight of safety improvement;
- supporting purposeful improvement planning aligned with organisational and system priorities; and
- developing approaches to consistently understand and measure the impact of improvement.
Our role
Health Innovation West Midlands has both a national leadership role and a regional delivery role within the PSIRF Insight to Improvement programme.
PSIRF Insight to Improvement – National
Health Innovation West Midlands (HIWM) are working in partnership with Health Innovation East Midlands (HIEM) as the national lead to support the implementation of the PSIRF Insight to Improvement across all 15 Health Innovation Networks.
Explore our national lead role
PSIRF Insight to Improvement – West Midlands
Through the West Midlands Patient Safety Collaborative, we work with providers, Integrated Care Boards and regional partners to support delivery of PSIRF Insight to Improvement across the West Midlands.