News: Aotearoa Patient Safety Day 2021

Planning for Aotearoa Patient Safety Day 2021 | Te Rā Haumaru Tūroro o Aotearoa 2021 on Friday 17 September continues. The focus for 2021 is maternal and newborn safety, aligning with the theme of the World Health Organization’s Global Patient Safety Day.

Thank you to those who responded to our request for sector input about how we communicate Aotearoa Patient Safety Day messages and the resources we provide. It is important we design a campaign that is relevant to you and your organisation’s priorities.

As a result of this feedback, and feedback from our ‘ideas group’ (representatives from ACC, PHARMAC, district health boards, primary, secondary care and community care), we have confirmed the Aotearoa theme as ‘Culturally-responsive maternity care for whānau to support maternal wellbeing and maternal and newborn safety’.

The focus will be on encouraging health care workers to provide culturally-responsive care to improve maternity care for all whānau and support pregnant women and people with their overall health and wellbeing during pregnancy. It is recognised that positive maternity care looks different for different people.

Key audiences are the health sector (midwives, general practitioners, practice nurses and obstetricians) and the community (pregnant women and people/their whānau).

Campaign aims are to:

• increase culturally-responsive care to improve maternity care for all whānau and supporting pregnant women and people’s overall health and wellbeing during pregnancy
• open the discussion to find out what pregnant women and people want and need
• talk with patients and whānau about what is most important to them
• raise health professional’s awareness of potential biases and how that affects care.

Resources

We are currently finalising plans around the resources that will be available and more details will be available on the Commission’s website shortly.