Safety Management System

Supporting organisations with the development, enhancement and evaluation of SMS

The term ‘Safety Management Systems’ or SMS is increasingly being heard in conversations about patient safety but what is it? You already have countless procedures, requirements and people under the umbrella of safety. So why would you need something else?

The answer lies in the question. Most, if not all healthcare organisations, devote substantial resource and time to managing and improving patient safety already. However, it is vital that this investment is deployed effectively and efficiently.

Safety management systems are used to manage safety in the healthcare sector and other safety critical industries such as aviation. A safety management system is a structured framework to proactively identify potential hazards to determine the likelihood and severity of risks, and develop strategies to prevent accidents or incidents from occurring.

Verita has extensive experience in the development, enhancement and evaluation of Safety Management Systems and can work alongside organisations to build a system appropriate to the size and nature of the activity.

If you need to reduce risk with a robust Safety Management System, please book a free consultation or simply call us on 020 7494 5670 so we can discuss how we can help your organisation.

REQUEST A CALL BACK

How we support with Patient Safety Management Systems

We would start by identifying all existing patient safety functions and where they might fit in a framework of components. From that framework we would look for gaps and duplications to ensure that patient safety objectives can be met and that resources are not being wasted.

We would also look to bolster consistency in patient safety culture, philosophy and activity across the organisation. Supporting this we could help create a programme of training and education to spread understanding of SMS and people’s roles and responsibilities within it.

Implementation of a Safety Management System

We design the implementation to be as non-disruptive as possible. Because we focus on bolstering what you already have rather than starting from scratch, the process is a development of your current work. We provide the external capacity and expertise to do the heavy lifting of evaluation and framework design.

Our implementation helps you improve patient safety without disrupting front-line care through the following steps:

Gap Analysis & System Mapping: Identifying strengths and weaknesses, and where where resources are being wasted on duplication.
Structural Design & Policy Alignment: We help you create a clear safety policy, ensuring that roles and responsibilities are clearly defined.
Proactive Risk & Assurance Integration: We help you move from ‘Safety 1’ to ‘Safety 2’ to move your organisation from “waiting for incidents” to “seeking out hazards”.
Safety Promotion & Cultural Embedding: We focus on training and communication to ensure the SMS becomes embedded into a Just Culture.

SMS is really not something additional – it is a way to marshal patient safety management into a recognisable structure so that nothing is missed out and waste is minimised.

By working with Verita, we help your organisation to deliver certainty in an environment where uncertainty equals risk.

Recent high-profile work into patient safety management

Our recent high-profile investigation into patient safety management was published by Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in late October 2025, where we reviewed patient safety management systems to determine whether there were missed opportunities to identify and prevent harm following concerns raised about an orthopaedic surgeon.

This wide-ranging review required us to identify all the gaps, errors or missed signals between 2012 to 2024. This included assessing the effectiveness of the management, whether governance arrangements were sufficient and whether they were complied with, and review the trust’s responses to complaints and patient safety incidents relating to the surgeon.

The trust responded by accepting our findings and setting out a plan to implement our recommendations to ensure patient safety is improved and lessons are learned.

What are the components of a Patient Safety Management System?

SMS aims to corral patient safety activities into a few core components and harmonise the approach across the organisation.

While there is no one-size-fits-all solution, here is an example of the core components of an SMS for a healthcare organisation:

Planning and policy for patient safety – shaping activities and allocating resources
Implementing policy – functional patient safety and risk management activities
Feedback and oversight – measuring patient safety performance
Training and education – embedding understanding of patient safety principles

Within this structure each component can include several elements.

At Verita, we help organisations master the core components of safety management, building the cultural foundations required for sustainable patient safety.

Phase 1: Planning and policy for patient safety

In this strategic phase, leadership moves beyond saying that safety is a priority and starts treating it as a core business function. This could include defining a clear, written statement of the organisation’s commitment to safety which is shared with all staff, budgeting for safety technology and specialised personnel, and allocating time for staff to attend safety briefings.

It is important to establish measurable goals and KPIs and ensure every clinician and manager knows exactly what their responsibilities are regarding patient safety.

Phase 2: Implementing policy

This stage is focused on patient safety and risk management activities and working with a risk management consultant enables the organisation to identify where a process might fail before it actually does.

A successful safety management system requires an incident reporting mechanism where staff feel safe to report concerns without fear of reprisal so ensuring an effective system is in place is vital.

Other examples of areas where risk can be managed is through the development of evidence-based Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for high risk activities, such as surgical checklists and hand-off protocols.

Phase 3: Feedback and oversight

In ‘feedback and oversight’ there might be performance indicators, patient safety investigations, patient safety incident management system audits, and a leadership review process.

This way a framework can be established to promote consistency and improve the visibility of gaps, deviations and shortcomings in patient safety management. It can also provide evidence of success to encourage greater acceptance of the SMS concept.

Phase 4: Training and education

Creating a programme of training and education to spread understanding of SMS and people’s roles and responsibilities within it is vital to ensure that the changes implemented will be actioned by staff.

Ensuring there is a positive culture in place is vital so assessing and managing your organisation’s culture may be required to identify areas for improvement which may otherwise hinder the effectiveness of a safety management system.

Find out more

If you would like to know more about our Safety Management System service, please get in touch by emailing Verita’s founder, Ed Marsden, via email at [email protected] or call 020 7494 5670.

Safety Management System Insights