Dear HIFA and CHIFA colleagues,
The announcement below is forwarded from the Global Patient Safety Network. Comment from me below.
Dear Colleagues,
Greetings from Geneva.
WHO is pleased to announce that the theme for World Patient Safety Day (WPSD) 2025 is ‘Safe care for every newborn and every child’, with the slogan ‘Patient safety from the start!’. This year’s theme was selected based on the recommendations of the WPSD 2024 Steering Committee, recognizing the urgent need for stronger measures to protect newborns and children from preventable harm in health care.
Although the reported incidence of adverse events in paediatric and newborn care varies, studies suggest that patient harm occurs across all health care settings, with higher risks in intensive care units. Addressing this challenge requires comprehensive efforts across key patient safety areas, such as safe childbirth and postnatal care, medication safety, diagnostic safety, immunization safety, infection prevention and early recognition of clinical deterioration.
Please spread the word about the campaign by sharing the enclosed announcement with your networks. The WPSD 2025 Event Webpage is now available in English HERE [ https://www.who.int/news-room/events/detail/2025/09/17/default-calendar/... ] and will soon be accessible in all UN languages. In the coming weeks, this webpage will contain the announcement in all UN official languages. The WHO Campaign Webpage including further content and campaign materials will be populated in the upcoming months.
We encourage you to start planning activities to mark the day and invite you to continue sharing updates, discussions and resources related to WPSD 2025 on the platform. Your contributions will inspire others and help WHO document global celebrations of the day.
As we set our sights on WPSD 2025, we are excited to build on past efforts and make this year’s campaign even more impactful. Every idea, every initiative and every effort—big or small—makes a difference.
Looking forward to your contributions in making this campaign a success.
Thank you and best regards,
Ayda Tayda
On behalf of Patient Safety Flagship
Patient Safety and Quality of Care Unit
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Objectives of World Patient Safety Day 2025
- Raise global awareness of safety risks in paediatric and newborn care in all health care settings, emphasizing the specific needs of children, families and caregivers.
- Mobilize governments, health care organizations, professional bodies and civil society to implement sustainable strategies for safer care for newborns and children, as part of broader patient safety and quality initiatives.
- Empower parents, caregivers and children in patient safety by promoting education, awareness and active participation in care.
- Advocate for strengthening research on patient safety in paediatric and newborn care.
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COMMENT (NPW): Quality of care, morbidity and mortality are dependent on the availability of relevant, reliable healthcare information for individuals and families, and health workers. Too many children die because of ill-informed decision-making at all levels of care, from the home through to the different levels of the health system.
HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org