The Patient Safety Ambassadors Programme

The ESAIC Board, the ESAIC Patient Safety and Quality Committee, and its Patient Safety Partners have launched the ESAIC Ambassador’s Programme, inspired by ESAIC’s Safer Care to Save Lives (SCSL) curriculum.

This curriculum contains a complete training path aimed at providing key knowledge on patient safety in acute settings: intensive care, anaesthesiology and perioperative care and emergency settings, but also beyond. It is built on the overarching principles of the Helsinki Declaration on Patient Safety in Anaesthesiology. It follows a stepwise, blended educational approach, including online on-demand and LIVE (online or face-to-face) education.

Healthcare professionals who complete all elements of the Safer Care to Save Lives (SCSL) Patient Safety Ambassador’s programme will be officially recognised as Ambassadors for Patient Safety in a dedicated celebration ceremony at Euroanaesthesia. After launching the programme in Munich in 2024 and celebrating the first ambassadors in Lisbon in 2025, we are proud that, in 2026, we also had the honour of celebrating 31 new ambassadors during the Euroanaesthesia Congress in Rotterdam/The Netherlands.

Our vision is that every acute care setting healthcare provider in Europe will receive and be certified in ESAIC patient safety training as part of their continuing education program. Every patient and relative will have an education programme available to participate in their own safety.

The revised Helsinki Declaration on Patient Safety in Anesthesiology and Intensive Care (HD 2.0) builds on earlier statements about safety and quality of care. It represents a shared European opinion of what is both worthwhile and practical to improve patient safety in anaesthesiology. It recommends practical steps that all anaesthesiologists not already using them should include in their practice. These are relatively straightforward and, where they are currently being used, have a track record of improving patient safety.

The Patient Safety Ambassadors Programme includes the following content:

1. The ESAIC Essential Patient Safety Course

A series of eLearning modules for those starting with an interest in patient safety.

The EPSC is built on the Helsinki Declaration’s overarching principles for patient safety. Through the 5 modules of the training programme, participants will learn the key dimensions of the Helsinki Declaration, understand issues related to system complexity and human factors and train in the use of common quality and safety improvement tools. The programme is a stand-alone course that provides the necessary theoretical content for the Advanced Patient Safety Course (APSC) and the patient safety masterclass (PSQ Masterclass).

The programme includes a series of 5 different lectures, with Videos, Podcasts, theoretical content and interactive exercises and scenarios. It also includes updated reading on the topic and a short auto-evaluation test that closes each module. The Essential Patient Safety Course (EPSC) is offered online year-round. The programme covers a wide range of safety and quality-related topics. It enables participants to learn key concepts and practise quality and safety improvement strategies they can use in their own clinical setting.

2. The ESAIC Advanced Patient Safety Course

A certified course for those with a more advanced understanding of patient safety topics.

The ESAIC Advanced Patient Safety Course is a live 1.5-day course that teaches patient safety tools you can use in acute settings. We use modern teaching methods, including interactive group work and innovative 360-degree videos of key scenarios, followed by debriefing, to bring examples of critical situations to life. Topics covered include interactive settings for safety culture, patient safety tools, human factors, incident reporting and learning from errors, systems analysis, how to analyse a safety incident, crisis management, teamwork, communication and situation awareness, and patient advocacy and patient safety advocacy.

ESAIC provides the APSC as a cascade training programme in collaboration with national training structures.

Healthcare professionals who attend 100% of the APSC and pass the course assessment will hold the ESAIC Advanced Anaesthesia and Intensive Care Patient Safety Certificate. The APSC is aimed at all healthcare professionals, patients and stakeholders interested in patient safety in acute settings: Intensive Care, Perioperative Care, Anaesthesia, Emergency Care and other settings where acute patients are treated.

Currently, 10 countries in Europe have already taken over the APSC and deliver it in their own country and in their own language.

In those countries, previous participants who have taken a Teach-the-Teacher course deliver this course using the material (case scenarios, videos, PowerPoint presentations) provided by the ESAIC.

A digital student manual is available as a guidebook through the APSC live programme. This book supports immediate pre-reading and serves as course documentation, including the rationale for the course content, concept highlights, and worksheets for the 360º workshops. The national society can translate student books into national languages if needed.

The next course organised by the ESAIC will be held in early May 2027; keep an eye on the website for details. You can also find announcements of national events across Europe and beyond.

Quotes from former participants

“Fantastic course, a must for every anaesthesiologist. Should be in the basic package of the training.”

“I highly recommend taking this course as it gives us a condensed perspective on patient safety as well as allows us to exchange experiences among different healthcare systems and countries.”

“Excellent course with high-quality education materials – the videos were interesting and well-made, and the manual is superb. Loved the discussion on the course with colleagues from other countries – there was a real sense of openness and honesty from all participants.”

3. The ESAIC Patient Safety and Quality Masterclass

The Patient Safety and Quality Masterclass is an advanced scientific workshop dedicated to learning the principles and practice of patient safety, clinical risk management and quality of care.

This intensive 2.5-day workshop is built on the principle of maximising interaction among attendees through small-group learning and participation-based sessions. While we can cover a wide range of safety and quality-related topics, our diverse faculty enables participants to focus on topics relevant to their clinical settings and target their needs to maximise learning.

This course is aimed at anaesthesiologists, nurse anaesthetists, other perioperative clinicians/staff, and hospital administrators who already have some experience in patient safety and are clearly motivated to be patient safety and quality champions in their departments. The focus is on perioperative patient safety.

The Patient Safety and Quality Masterclass has a different programme from the Advanced Patient Safety Course. It provides a deeper look into Patient Safety issues for participants at different levels, including those new to the subject. The aim is to establish a firmer foundation in the different areas and topics that make up the field of Patient Safety. Topics covered in this masterclass include human error, human factors, safety science, psychology, drift, cognitive aids, teamwork, resilience engineering, the patient’s perspective, quality indicators, evidence-based patient safety, communication and connection, critical incident debriefing and analysis, and communication with patient relatives as well as second victims.

The next course will take place from 2–4 November 2026 in Zagreb/Croatia. There are few spaces left, so interested colleagues can still subscribe. Also in 2027, there will be the chance to follow this highly dedicated, interactive, face-to-face course: from 1–3 March 2027 in Porto/Portugal, registration will open soon on the ESAIC website. For more information, please get in touch with patient.safety@esaic.org.

Quotes from recent participants

“This is the best master class/ work shop I have been to. I find it very relevant to my work, both in research, as a leader and as a clinician. It was a very good mix of participants with different levels of experience. It was also the first time I experienced the patient’s perspective in a workshop, and I found it very inspirational. The only criticism I have, is that this class should have been announced much earlier.”

“This programme was exactly what I was looking for in a safety masterclass, a good mix of theory and its practical applications. The faculty was knowledgeable, and discussions with them and the other participants were enlightening. The use of clinical cases for putting the theory into practice was very useful and kept the flow going throughout the course.”

The ESAIC also looks forward to certifying the new Patient Safety ambassadors during the next annual congress in Copenhagen/Denmark.

Author: Benedikt Preckel, Chair of the Patient Safety and Quality Committee, ESAIC Anaesthesiologist, Amsterdam UMC location AMC, The Netherlands