RCPI Being Safe Together

RCPI Being Safe Together Programme

Practical application of patient safety and quality improvement science.

What is the RCPI Being Safe Together Programme?

The OECD Global State of Patient Safety 2023 ranked Ireland 7th in their Patient Safety Country Ranking. Our Collaborative programme is featured as a case study.

RCPI Being Safe Together is a short, 6-month collaborative patient safety education programme facilitated by RCPI expert faculty, funded by the HSE National Quality and Patient Safety Directorate. Multidisciplinary hospital-based teams learn how to implement an innovative safety improvement bundle, designing a new or improved Safety Huddle tailored to their clinical needs and setting.

The bundle teaches effective implementation of key safety interventions such as EWS e.g. Irish National Early Warning System (INEWS), effective communication, psychological safety and medicines safety in adult, paediatric, maternity and neonatal settings.

The programme represents an excellent opportunity for multidisciplinary frontline clinical teams to further develop quality improvement (QI) and patient safety skills to tackle a specific problem area of their choice.

"Patient safety matters to everyone in healthcare, patients, their families and all of us who work to deliver good care. In this course we take theories and practices that have been found to make care safer, drawing on the theories of patient safety science and adapting ideas from other safety focused environments.

You will learn that one of the ways to view safety is as the daily practices that teams undertake while delivering the care we want to; free from harm and tailored to the needs of patients, without overburdening already busy staff. 

The team safety huddle is the platform where we will co-design new approaches to practicing safety, creating reliable and psychologically safe spaces where everyone can share their safety insights, giving teams shared awareness of risks, and enabling the anticipation and planning required to meet the needs of the day. 

Through dialogue, respect and plenty of fun engagement with colleagues you will learn how to transform the mind-set and practice of safety in your workplace."

Dr John Fitzsimons, QI Lead for RCPI Being Safe Together

Applications now open

Applications open for a new cohort, launching in September 2025.

RCPI Being Safe Together is open to multidisciplinary healthcare teams of four people who work together in a clinical setting and who are interested in implementing or improving a bespoke safety huddle in their workplace. More information on the application process and course schedule is available on the next tab(s).

Testimonials

“The overall experience of the course was a positive one. The key learnings taken from the course is that in order to achieve change there will always need a cultural change. Making the difference between what has always been done to what is best and how can we do it better. The pilot can be applied to any safety issue or problem”

Anonymous Team, Cohort 7

“Empowered individuals to recognise potential hazards and respond appropriately leading to noticeable decrease in incidents”

Anonymous Team, Cohort 8

Videos

Tullamore Hospital

Our Lady of Lourdes Drogheda

How is the RCPI Being Safe Together Collaborative delivered?

• Clinical areas select a team of four people to attend the course and bring the learning back to the clinical setting
• Each team member is expected to attend every session with their team

Teams are expected to:

• -Conduct a safety huddle implementation or improvement initiative in their workplace
• -Actively participate in the learning sessions and ‘homework’
• -Submit course outputs including a newspaper article, abstract, poster and video story

Faculty will:

• -Deliver interactive lectures, case studies, group activities and project-based learning
• -Provide developmental feedback on homework submissions
• -Day 1 and 6 are full day in person sessions in Dublin
• -Days 2-5 are half days online via zoom
• -Engage in a coaching relationship during and between sessions as needed and appropriate
• -This is a 6-day blended learning programme (two full days in person, four half days virtual via Zoom) delivered by expert faculty

Why do RCPI Being Safe Together?

When you join the Collaborative, you will work within your teams with expert faculty to achieve the following aims:

• Reduce avoidable error and harm to acutely unwell patients
• Improve communication between individuals involved in patient care
• Improve culture and provide psychological safety for healthcare staff

Who can apply?

RCPI Being Safe Together is open to multidisciplinary teams of four people working together in acute inpatient adult, maternity, neonatal, paediatric or emergency care settings and from new or previously participating hospitals.

Who is in a team?

RCPI Being Safe Together teams have four members; a consultant, a senior nurse or midwife and two others. In exceptional circumstances, a team without a consultant may be accepted but may be considered a disadvantage in the application process.

Team members should be working together in the same clinical team, clinic, ward or specialty. They should be committed to implementing or improving a bespoke Safety Huddle in that setting. They must each have the scope and influence to effect change in that setting.

All four members must have executive sponsorship to participate and must commit to attending all six workshops (live and virtual) and to working together for the duration of the programme to design and implement their bespoke Safety Huddle.

The teams should expect to meet briefly at least weekly for the duration of the collaborative. These meetings could be in person or virtual. Previous teams strongly recommend building time to discuss the Huddle around existing structures to facilitate attendance and participation

We already have huddles – what’s different about the RCPI Being Safe Together huddle?

Many teams will already be familiar with the concept of huddles or safety initiatives such as the HSE Safety Pause. This is encouraging but there is often room for improvement in an existing huddle or an opportunity for development of a bespoke SAFE huddle to target specific patient safety concerns. Previous RCPI SAFE teams have done both with great success.

Here is some of what our recent graduates had to say:

• -"It facilitated closed loop communication among the different specialities within the hospital"
• -"Reduced the ward hierarchy and allows any member of the team to advocate for patients and their safety"
• -"The programme gave us a platform to identify and escalate issues daily and then find strategies to manage issues that arise"
• -"We do a huddle in the mornings with managers and obstetric team, helps communication and anticipating patients we are worried about"

What is expected of us as a team?

This course is delivered in person and remotely. Learners are expected to attend all sessions as a full team. For the virtual sessions, teams are strongly encouraged to join the session together from a room with AV facilities. Teams who have taken this approach have tended to achieve far better outcomes.

As a team, you will be expected to:

• -attend all scheduled learning sessions
• -meet regularly as a team
• -be actively involved in the design and implementation of the huddle implementation or improvement initiative in your workplace

What supports are in place for the teams?

All team members will be enrolled onto Brightspace, the RCPI virtual learning environment. Brightspace will be used to communicate with teams, provide programme content; resources, references and templates; and teams will be able to upload their ‘homework’ tasks ahead of each learning session to receive developmental feedback.

Our expert faculty provide team-based coaching using the Microsoft Teams platform to support teams between sessions, address and mitigate challenges and encourage engagement with the learning.

What will we learn?

• -Safety theory including identifying risks and harms
• -Huddle theory
• -Safety culture theory & assessment
• -Hear from previous teams and share learning with your peers
• -Develop and test your huddle script
• -Measure and communicate your successes

What are the learning session dates?

Recruitment for RCPI Being Safe Together Cohort 10 will open in October 2025, with the program scheduled to begin in March 2026. Full details and key dates will be available on this website starting October 2025.

Apply below to join RCPI Being Safe Together

PLEASE READ ALL PREVIOUS INFORMATION ABOUT THE COURSE BEFORE YOU BEGIN YOUR APPLICATION PROCESS

• -To apply click on the link at the bottom of the webpage. 
• -To prepare your application, you will need the names, roles and contact details for all four team members. 
• -One person will complete the form on behalf of the team but it is important that ALL team members and line managers are on board with the application and have course dates in their diaries. 
• -Attendance at all the learning sessions is essential for all team members.
• -Applications open until 17 June 2025
• -Successful teams will be notified by email after 18 June 2025

If you would like to speak to someone about the course before applying please contact the RCPI Quality Improvement Department at qualityimprovement@rcpi.ie