About us

The NIHR Patient Safety Research Collaboration (PSRC) Network (NIHR SafetyNet) was launched in September 2023. It provides a platform for the strategic coordination of the six PSRCs’ activities working across Patient Safety Challenges.

The six PSRCs are funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) with a £25 million investment over five years, starting from April 2023. Learn more about the funding award.

Our vision

As the NIHR PSRC Network, SafetyNet’s vision is to exploit the potential for sharing knowledge, expertise and resources across the six PSRCs.

This will maximise the PSRCs’ ability to deliver highly relevant research that responds to the needs of patients and the health and care system, and enhances the impact of patient safety research in England.

We will work closely with our stakeholders and wider networks to:

• Enhance the PSRCs’ ability to work across areas with the greatest need for improvement in patient safety, including reducing inequalities.
• Enable greater responsiveness to the needs of the health and care system by acting as a focal point for collaboration across the PSRCs.
• Create capacity for, and capability in, patient safety research by bringing researchers and PhD students together to learn from one another, and generate ideas for new research and funding.
• Facilitate links and drive collaboration across a wide range of stakeholders.
• Generate best practice for patient and public involvement/engagement and equity, diversity and inclusion in patient safety research.
• Actively communicate findings to a wide range of audiences.

Since our start in September 2023, we have already supported the delivery of several cross-PSRC events looking to future collaborations. Find out more in our first newsletter.

On the horizon is an exciting venture to develop a Safety Equity Network, which will bring teams together to explore opportunities for driving forward safety equity research.

Addressing strategic patient safety challenges

NIHR PSRCs undertake a programme of work to address one or more Strategic Patient Safety Challenges, which have been developed with relevant stakeholders. These are:

• Improving patient safety intelligence and understanding of patient safety challenges
• Improving organisational patient safety culture and practice
• Patient safety behaviours
• Effective patient safety practices
• The patient safety impacts of alternative service delivery models
• Ergonomics, design and human factors
• Clinical risk scores (validation, implementation and outcomes)