European Conference in Lucembourg: 'Patient Safety - Making it happen!'

A conference on patient safety organised under the auspices of the Luxembourg EU Presidency and the European Commission. The outcome of the conference was laid down in the Luxembourg Declaration on Patient Safety.



Report of the European ‘Patient Safety – Making it happen!’ Conference in Luxembourg, 4-5 April 2005


On 4-5 April 2005 major EU health stakeholders representing patients, health care professionals, EU and national authorities, met in Luxembourg at the first EU conference on patient safety. The Conference “Patient Safety – Making it happen – The European perspective” was held under the auspices of the Luxembourg EU Presidency and the European Commission. The conference focussed on patient safety interests and challenges at EU level, on facilitating the exchange of best practices and experiences and sustaining and strengthening the political momentum.
Mr. Di Bartolomeo, Minister of Health and Social Security Luxembourg, and Mr. Kyprianou, Commissioner for Health and Consumer Protection opened the conference and both highlighted the importance of patient safety in healthcare.
The keynote speaker Dr. Bagian, Director of the US Veterans Affairs National Centre for Patient Safety (USA), then addressed the audience. This former NASA astronaut and supervisor of the Challenger’s recovery from the ocean floor after its explosion in 1986 highlighted the lessons for healthcare to learn from the space aviation industry.
The next speaker Dr. Schellekens, CEO of the Dutch Institute for Healthcare Improvement, showed the challenge that patient safety is for the healthcare sector. Prof. Coulter, CEO Picker Institute Europe, then presented the patient’s perspective on patient safety. This was followed by the professional’s perspective presented by Dr. Poulsen, Vice-president of the Standing Committee of European Doctors (CPME). The last speaker of this first day was Dr. Michel, representative of the WHO World Alliance for Patient Safety, who highlighted the work of this worldwide network on patient safety.

The second day started with three different parallel sessions. The first parallel session dealt with therapies, medicines and communication in primary healthcare. The second one addressed the question of developing a national framework for patient safety. And the last session discussed the issue of how to ensure patient safety in hospitals.
The afternoon plenary session started with a speech by Dr. Adamou, who gave his view on the activities on patient safety as a member of the European Parliament. Then the three chairs of the parallel sessions reported the conclusions of the morning sessions.
This was followed by a presentation by Sir Liam Donaldson, the Chief Medical Officer of the United Kingdom and chair of the WHO World Alliance on Patient Safety. He highlighted the effects adverse events can have on individual patients and mentioned that the UK Presidency was going to take the work on patient safety forward.

A panel discussion where the audience could discuss with the speakers followed. Finally a discussion on the draft Luxembourg declaration on patient safety that was circulated took place among the attendees of the conference and the final version was agreed upon.
Mr. Di Bartolomeo, Minister of Health and Social Security Luxembourg, in his closing speech thanked all participants for their presence and expressed his happiness with the final Luxembourg Declaration on Patient Safety (EN/FR).
After the conference the declaration was presented in a press conference by the Luxembourg Minister of Health, Mr. Di Bartolomeo, the Director of Public Health at DG SANCO Mr. Sauer and the CPME President, Dr. Bernhard Grewin.
With the Luxembourg Declaration the conference and the group of organizing stakeholders have put a starting point to more widespread political attention to the subject of patient safety. The Luxembourg Presidency of the EU has together with the European Commission placed the issue on the EU agenda and the UK already announced its will to follow up during its upcoming Presidency of the EU.

More information including all presentations can be found on www.cpme.be