Safety institute is a go

The National Steering Committee on Patient Safety is pleased with the federal government's decision to spend $50 million over 5 years to create a Canadian Patient Safety Institute.

The institute was the committee's major recommendation when its report, Building a Safer System, was released last September. The new funding was announced when the federal budget was released Feb. 18.

“This is a very wonderful step forward,” says Dr. Ross Baker, a committee member. He says all parties involved — medical associations, accreditation councils and governments — will now have to determine the institute's exact role and scope.

He says it must operate at arm's length from government. “We need to create an opportunity for people [to] feel safe [from legal and other action] after discussion of these very critical events that happen in health care.”

Although the money is the exact amount the committee had asked for, Baker says it's still a lot less than what similar bodies in Australia and the United Kingdom receive. “We certainly think the issues and problems are much larger than $10 million [a year] in the long run, but we'll figure out how to address that,” he says. — Tim Lai, CMAJ