Wednesday, 28 January, 2026
Researcher: Associate Professor Aoife De Brún, UCD School of Nursing, Midwifery and Health Systems
Summary
Health systems around the world are striving to provide safer, more reliable care. Yet frontline staff, educators, and patient partners often lack a clear, shared understanding of the knowledge and skills required to improve quality and patient safety. To address this gap, Associate Professor Aoife De Brún, colleagues at UCD IRIS, and from HSE Quality and Patient Safety, worked with staff, patients, researchers and managers to co-design the (opens in a new window)Quality and Patient Safety (QPS) Competency Navigator, a national, evidence-based resource that defines the core competencies needed to deliver and support high-quality care.
The Navigator is a comprehensive, accessible and user-friendly resource, designed for everyone from those that are new to quality and safety up to the level of mastery. It standardises the quality and patient safety competencies needed to support the provision of quality, safe care to our population. By providing guidance and practical support, it enables the development of those competencies, while aligning and supporting existing processes.
The Navigator has already been widely adopted across the Irish health system. Since publication in January 2025, it has received more than 2,500 views and over 1,000 downloads, won the National Healthcare Centre Award for Patient Safety, and was shortlisted for Best L&D Collaboration by Learning & Development Ireland. Developed with over 90 stakeholders including healthcare staff, patient partners, educators, regulators, and policymakers, the Navigator is now shaping training, supporting staff development, and empowering patients to participate meaningfully in improving healthcare.
Research description
High-profile concerns about care quality and safety have highlighted the importance of equipping everyone who works in healthcare—with or without a clinical role—with the knowledge, skills and behaviours needed to improve the system. Yet Ireland previously had no national agreement on what these competencies should be.
Between 2022 and 2024, the UCD-led research team worked with HSE National Quality and Patient Safety to develop an accessible, standardised competency framework for staff, students, and patient partners. This work unfolded across three key phases:
- Synthesising existing evidence: A systematic scoping review of over 100 international publications revealed a fragmented and inconsistent range of quality and patient-safety competencies. These insights informed the next phase of this work.
- Co-designing a national solution: More than 80 stakeholders including clinicians, educators, senior leaders, policymakers, and patient partners participated in workshops and expert sub-groups to agree the competencies most important for safe, high-quality care. The collaborative process ensured the final resource is relevant, practical and user-centred.
- Testing and refining the Navigator: In total, 31 stakeholders reviewed the prototype Navigator. Feedback was very positive and constructive, leading to refinements in language and layout to promote accessibility and usability.
The result is a comprehensive, visually engaging resource outlining the competencies needed from introductory level through to mastery, with signposting to learning supports and practical guidance for applying the framework in daily work.
Research impact
Social and political impact
The Navigator has quickly gained national support from key organisations, including the Forum of Irish Postgraduate Medical Training Bodies, Patients for Patient Safety Ireland, the Office of the Nursing and Midwifery Services Director, and the Department of Health’s National Patient Safety Office.
The team has been invited to present the work at major national and international events, such as the National Patient Safety Conference and the International Society for Quality in Health Care. Because so many stakeholders were involved in its co-design, many are now actively embedding the Navigator within their own organisations ensuring widespread, system-level uptake.
Crucially, the resource also supports greater public and patient involvement. By identifying the competencies that underpin meaningful collaboration, the Navigator helps service users build the confidence and skills needed to participate in improvement initiatives. Patients and members of the public can use it to understand the principles of quality and safety and to assess their own learning needs.
Created through an extensive co-design process… this competency navigator is relevant, useful and usable, designed by staff and patients for staff and patients.
— Dr Colm Henry, HSE Chief Clinical Officer
Educational impact
The Navigator provides a unified, evidence-based framework for quality and patient safety competencies that can be applied across education, training, and professional development. From its launch in January 2025 up to the end of October 2025 it was viewed 2,686 times and downloaded 1,051 times.
It is already being used to:
- Inform undergraduate and postgraduate curricula across health and social care disciplines
- Support induction and continuous professional development programmes
- Guide staff and patient partners in assessing their learning needs
- Underpin future HSE training in quality and patient safety
By standardising what competencies are core to various roles in healthcare, the Navigator brings consistency to QPS education nationally and supports a shared language for improvement efforts.
Health and economic impact
Building workforce capabilities in quality and patient safety has long-term benefits for patients, staff, and the health system. The Navigator provides a practical way to develop these capabilities, helping reduce avoidable harm, prevent errors, and improve patient experiences.
Over time, embedding these competencies across the healthcare workforce will contribute to safer care and reduce the human and economic costs associated with preventable adverse events.
