We are pleased to announce the next training session from the SafetyNet Patient Safety 101 series, focusing on Resilient Health Care and asset based approaches to healthcare improvement. 

SafetyNet Patient Safety 101 sessions are intended for researchers who may not be experienced in patient safety and would like to know the basics on a range of Patient Safety topics or those who would like a refresher.

Date: 17 February 2026
Time: 10:30am – 12:00pm
Where: Online (Zoom)

Traditionally, approaches to healthcare improvement have focused on learning from past error and harm and have led to relatively simple and linear solutions (e.g. deliver training, rewrite a policy). There is increasing recognition that this approach does not work for the particularly complex problems that healthcare teams and organisations face. During this session we will explore a different way of thinking about safety management. Resilient Health Care (also known as Safety-II) recognises the complex adaptive nature of healthcare organisations and that things go ‘right’ more frequently than they go ‘wrong’. The session will explore some of the theoretical concepts and principles that underpin RHC and how they can be applied to support improvement. We will explore how RHC sits alongside other asset based improvement approaches such as Positive Deviance and Appreciative Inquiry, and how this way of thinking could support a Safety Management System. Together we will reflect on how this perspective can be applied to the research we conduct.  

Speakers

Dr Ruth Baxter

Ruth Baxter is a research fellow based in the Yorkshire Quality and Safety Research (YQSR) group and at the University of Leeds. She currently holds a Post-Doctoral Fellowship funded by THIS Institute (University of Cambridge) which explores how Resilient Health Care can be translated into practice to support patient safety improvement. Ruth conducts applied health services research with a broad interest in improving the quality and safety of patient care. She is particularly interested in exploring new approaches and theories to support patient safety improvements, the application of Safety Science, and patient involvement in patient safety. 

Brook Howells

Brook is a human factors specialist who previously worked in the NHS facilitating quality and safety improvements. She is currently undertaking a PhD with the NIHR Yorkshire and Humber Patient Safety Research Collaboration and the University of Leeds. Her research explores how safety management systems function in high-hazard industries and their potential benefit for healthcare. Her experience in the NHS has given her a keen interest in asset-based approaches and she is a practitioner and trainer for Appreciative Inquiry. 

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