Developing International Benchmarks of Patient Safety Culture in Hospital Care is a 2022 OECD working paper examining how hospital staff perceive patient safety and how countries can compare and improve safety culture.
Key insights:
Only 40% of surveyed hospital workers believed staffing levels were adequate for safe care.
Just 41% felt that mistakes and incident reports would not be held against staff.
Only 46% believed important patient information was transferred effectively during handovers and shift changes.
Around half believed management prioritised patient safety (50%) or that staff could speak openly about safety concerns (52%).
The strongest areas were teamwork within hospital units (68%) and continuous organisational learning (65%).
Results varied widely between countries, showing that strong performance in one area does not guarantee a strong overall safety culture.
Safety culture changes slowly, making regular measurement and sustained leadership essential.
The report recommends national safety-culture surveys, international benchmarking, disaggregated hospital-level data and combining staff feedback with patients’ reported safety experiences
