Safe health care: Are we up to it?

In the eight months since we put out the call for papers for this special issue of the BMJ devoted to medical errors, the landscape has changed considerably. In Britain the Bristol Inquiry has continued to focus professional and public attention on patient safety in a manner unprecedented both for its depth and for the extent of professional involvement.1 In the United States the recent publication of the report To Err is Human by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences2 received extraordinary media coverage as well as prompt responses to its recommendations from the President and Congress.3 PMC ID: PMC1117747 (March 18, 2000)