BMJ Quality & Safety is an international peer-reviewed journal covering the science of improvement across healthcare service and provision.

For many readers, the story of the quality of care at Mid Staffordshire NHS Trust in the UK from 2005 to 2009 will need little introduction. The substandard care provided and the combination of ...

Background: Idiosyncratic terminology and frameworks in the study of patient safety have been tolerated but are increasingly problematic. Agreement on standard language and frameworks is needed for ...

METHODS Of the first 4000 incidents reported to AIMS, those that made reference to regurgitation, vomiting or aspiration were extracted and analysed for relevance, presenting features, type of surgery ...

The stepped-wedge cluster randomised trial is a popular design in implementation and health services research. All clusters, such as clinics or hospitals, start in the control state, and gradually ...

Context Ambulatory adverse events (AEs) affect up to 25% of the global population and cause over 7 million preventable hospital admissions around the world. Though patients and caregivers are key ...

‘The problem with…’ series covers controversial topics related to efforts to improve healthcare quality, including widely recommended, but deceptively difficult strategies for improvement and ...

This May, the World Health Assembly (WHA) will vote on re-establishing a mandate for the WHO to address the health consequences of nuclear weapons and war.1 Health professionals and their associations ...

Background Inpatient falls are adverse events that often result in injury due to complex interactions between the hospital environment and patient risk factors and remain a significant problem in ...

Background Overuse of diagnostic testing substantially contributes to healthcare expenses and potentially exposes patients to unnecessary harm. Our objective was to systematically identify and examine ...

Background Double-checking the administration of medications has been standard practice in paediatric hospitals around the world for decades. While the practice is widespread, evidence of its ...

Background Studies show that implementing huddles in healthcare can improve a variety of outcomes. Yet little is known about the mechanisms through which huddles exert their effects. To help remedy ...