Launched last week at the Bedford Swan Hotel, and attended by 60 delegates from Bedford Hospital NHS Trust, the programme will commence in September 2014.

Led by Charles Kpodo, Senior Lecturer in Clinical Human Factors at Bedfordshire, the project will encourage Bedford Hospital staff to regularly consider a number of factors, ranging from decision making to setting and measuring goals, during their everyday work which will help improve patient safety.

Running until May 2015, 12 selected delegates from the Bedford Hospital NHS Trust will attend a monthly workshop in leadership in patient safety science, where they will learn of the factors that contribute to improving patient safety, and will subsequently present their findings to their staff at Bedford Hospital.

“I am extremely pleased that the University of Bedfordshire is helping Bedford Hospital in their quest in setting ambitious goals to ensure the highest standards of patient safety are met,” said Charles, who has worked with the NHS for some 15 years in senior nursing leadership roles.

“The main focus and objective of the launch event was to engage senior clinicians and leaders of the Trust, to discuss how to create a positive patient safety culture that embeds and sustains in improving safety across the organisation.”

He added: “It was great to see the delegates showing so much enthusiasm for the programme, and they said how engaged they felt in setting the priorities for projects to be led and implemented by selected members of the Trust, whilst also shaping the organisation’s ambition for safety.”