Assessing the usefulness of a safety climate questionnaire in UK healthcare

This paper presents the results of an assessment of a safety climate questionnaire in UK primary and secondary healthcare settings. Surveys were sent to four Acute Trusts and nine Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) and responses were received from 722 hospital and 585 primary care staff. Factor analysis and reliability analyses were undertaken, with the result that 2 Teamwork factors were derived from 13 teamwork items and 3 Safety Climate factors were derived from 14 safety items. Whilst the results indicate that the same instrument can be used in both primary and secondary care, our research demonstrates the need for more thorough validation of safety climate questionnaires before more general usage, and has also raised a number of questions about the suitability of using safety climate questionnaires in health service (rather than research) settings.