The Royal United Hospital in Bath has been named as one of the leaders of a new national campaign to improve patient safety.

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt made the announcement at the national launch of Sign up to Safety, which is designed to help realise the ambition of making the NHS the safest healthcare system in the world by creating a system devoted to continuous learning and improvement.

The RUH is committed to continuous quality improvement and has signed up to listening to patients, carers and staff, learning from what they say when things go wrong and take action to improve patients’ safety.

Dr Tim Craft, RUH medical director, said: “We are proud to have been chosen by the Secretary of State for Health as one of the 12 vanguard trusts to lead this campaign.

"Our commitment to Sign up to Safety arises from how we put patients at the heart of everything that we do, yet we know that there will always be more that can be done to further improve the safety of care that we offer.

“Our participation in the campaign reflects our willingness to have open and honest conversations with our patients, to learn from other trusts, and to share what we have learned with others.”