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Abstract

Background
The success of patient safety improvement initiatives depends on frontline staff engaging with improvement efforts. However, in the ENT speciality, there is less patient safety research compared to other healthcare specialities, and limited evidence on staff perspectives regarding safety improvement and the factors influencing their engagement.

Objectives
To map the literature on safety improvement efforts in the ENT speciality in UK settings, and to explore staff involvement and engagement with initiatives to improve patient safety in ENT.

Methods
A literature search was conducted using the PubMed, Ovid MEDLINE and SCOPUS databases to retrieve studies reporting the implementation of patient safety initiatives in ENT departments in the UK, and studies exploring frontline staff perspectives on improving safety in ENT. The selected studies were peer-reviewed, written in English and published between 2013 and 2023. Data were extracted and synthesised in accordance with the predefined research questions.

Results
1,661 studies were screened, and 10 met the selection criteria. Findings demonstrated evidence of staff initiating, designing and implementing safety improvement initiatives. Frontline staff engagement and senior staff/managerial involvement were identified as key contributors to successful implementation. Only one study addressed frontline staff priorities for safety improvement, in the context of improving tracheostomy, with the author stating that results indicated that frontline staff are unwilling to implement low priority interventions.

Conclusion
Further research is needed to explore the factors influencing staff perspectives on how patient safety can be improved in ENT and the factors influencing their engagement. This could lead to recommendations for the development of successful, sustainable initiatives. The authors of this review recommend establishing the following as standard practice: (a) appointing staff as quality/safety champions, and (b) involving frontline staff and senior managers in co-developing improvement strategies.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© The Author(s) 2025. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of International Society for Quality in Health Care. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Subjects:	R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine > RA0421 Public health. Hygiene. Preventive Medicine R Medicine > RC Internal medicine
Departments:	Presidents's Portfolio
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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