Patient safety: a European Union priority.

Every year in the 27 member states of the European Union, patients are harmed when receiving healthcare. Sometimes this is the fault of individual or multiple healthcare workers but more often than not organisational or system failures are to blame. The injuries and deaths from unsafe healthcare can never be completely eradicated. However, steps can be taken by policymakers and those responsible for the delivery of healthcare in all countries to reduce the human and economic burden of adverse events in all healthcare settings. Patient safety is an area of healthcare where economies of scales can be achieved through a European Community approach to tackling the problems. Share experiences, expertise, best practice and research findings can help member states to improve the safety of their health systems. This is why the European Commission put forward its patient safety proposal at the end of 2008.