Tuesday 10 March 2026 | 13:30-14:30
Stream: Safety
Session format: Presentation 

The core of the New South Wales (NSW) public health system in Australia is providing safe, high-quality, accessible, person-centred care. The Clinical Excellence Commission (CEC) leads system-wide clinical governance and safety assurance, being specialists in safety and partners in improvement. Preventable harm remains a global challenge, with complications costing Australian public hospitals billions annually, underscoring the importance of strong governance and leadership. Our role as stewards of clinical governance leadership is crucial to reducing patient harm and driving continuous safety improvement.

Over two decades, the CEC has provided support and guidance to build safety across NSW health. Linking with our 9-year strategy, we have developed the NSW Health Safety System Model as a contemporary framework for embedding patient safety and resilient clinical governance. This Model comprises six interdependent elements:

• Embedding Safety Strategically – Integrating safety into organisational strategy and governance to build resilience.
• Accountable Leadership and Culture –Safety is everyone’s responsibility, supported by transparent leadership and just culture principles.
• Safety Governance – Establishing robust structures for oversight, risk management, and shared learning.
• Safety Intelligence – Leveraging real-time, triangulated data and predictive analytics to inform proactive safety and improvement decisions.
• Safety and Improvement Capability – Building workforce capability.
  
• Safety Improvement – Through prioritisation of safety risks and implementation of targeted programs.
  

We have combined this approach with resilience thinking to assist health services to ‘create and maintain resilient systems that prevent harm, support wellbeing, and deliver lasting improvements in quality and safety.

After this session, participants will be able to:

• Understand how NSW has shifted from a program approach to systems and resilience thinking.
• Describe the elements of safety as outlined in the NSW Safety System model.
• Further their understanding of the concepts of resilience in safety.

Michael C. Nicholl NSW Clinical Excellence Commission; Australia
Patricia Bradd NSW Clinical Excellence Commission; Australia