The workshop attracted a diverse group of participants, including experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) and leading universities such as Cambridge, Leeds, and Oxford. Medical professionals from countries including the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Burundi, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, and Egypt, also contributed to the discussions.
Throughout the week, participants explored the unique challenges of delivering safe healthcare in resource-constrained settings, focusing on both staff and patient experiences. The discussions highlighted system challenges, and looked at potential pathways to enhance safety.
Professor Mike English explained that “unsafe care is estimated to contribute to over 2.5 million deaths a year, most in low- and middle-income countries, but strategies to reduce the burden in low-resource hospitals are rarely studied. Christ Church, through an initial research grant and by making its research centre available, enabled African health care leaders and researchers and a multidisciplinary group of Oxford and other UK experts to discuss how together we might start to address the huge challenge of unsafe care in hospitals in Africa and globally”.