Closing remarks: from insight to action
Closing address from Paul Sanders, UK and Ireland President, RLDatix, recorded at the RLDatix Wales: Listening and Learning for Improvement and Safe Care event, 23 June 2026, St. David’s Cardiff
Paul Sanders closed the day with a message to the room: don’t underestimate what you have. The collaborative culture, the shared data set, the collective knowledge and the passion represented across NHS Wales are rare. The task now is to turn a day of listening and learning into sustained action.
Key takeaways from this session
- Don’t lose sight of your experience, passion and knowledge. There are not many collaborative groups anywhere in health and care that come together around patient safety the way NHS Wales does.
- Wales holds a unique data set. The day highlighted multiple ways to bring that data to insight and insight to action.
- Technology supports, but people drive change. From clinical engagement to leading indicators, the day reinforced that safety improvement depends on human judgement, culture and leadership as much as systems.
- Take insight into action. The gap between what we know and what we do is where the real work begins.
The power of the group
Paul opened his closing remarks with thanks: to the delegates for their engagement, to Jonathan Webb and Maria for sponsoring and championing the event, to the speakers for covering the brief from international perspectives to local practice, and to the RLDatix team for the organisation behind it.
But the substance of his message was about the community itself.
"There’s not many collaborative groups around a sort of domain and function that you have. Don’t lose sight of your experience, your passion and the knowledge. We’re keen to support unlocking that as well.”
Paul Sanders, UK and Ireland President, RLDatix
The day had opened with Jan Williams framing the scale of the challenge: over £800 million in claims and a moral responsibility to reduce harm. It moved through Helen Hughes on the implementation gap, Dr Louise Schaper on connected data, Gethin Bateman on proactive safety intelligence, Dr Darren Kilroy on clinical engagement, Alex Kofatz on the signals hiding in plain sight, and Mark Lingood and Chad Jennings on the innovation that is reshaping how learning systems work.
Through workshops, open discussion and the customer voice session, delegates from across NHS Wales shared their own priorities: faster improvement, genuine learning cultures, data that connects, upstream prevention and frontline engagement.
Paul drew those threads together into a single challenge.
"You have got a unique data set. Lots of references today around how we can bring that data to insight to drive actions. We can help with technology, but ultimately it surrounds taking that out into clinical engagement, driving it forward.”
Protecting safety under pressure
Paul returned to the message he had set out that morning. As macro pressures on the health system continue to grow, the variable most at risk is patient safety. The day had reinforced his conviction that the profession of patient safety and risk management needs to be protected, elevated and championed.
"We hold it amongst all of us to bring all those leading indicators to make sure that worst case, we’re protecting our organisations and patients and staff from the worst-case scenario.”
The day was not designed to be a one-off. Paul confirmed that RLDatix is committed to continuing the partnership with NHS Wales and is willing to host future events. He invited feedback and committed to collating and sharing the workshop insights from the sessions that ran out of time.
"We here want to be partners to you. Give us feedback about how this day has gone. We’re more than happy, with Jonathan’s blessing, to do this as and when it’s needed again.”
The common thread
The event began with a question: how can NHS Wales use its collaborative strengths to reduce avoidable harm and make learning travel faster than risk?
Across nine sessions, four workshops and two open discussions, the answer came through consistently. Wales has the data, the culture, the people and the systems. What it needs now is the discipline to connect them, the leadership to act on what they reveal and the commitment to sustain improvement beyond the energy of a single day.
"There’s a really strong opportunity to take that insight and take it into action. For me, it’s been an absolutely fantastic day.”
FAQs
The RLDatix Wales: Listening and Learning for Improvement and Safe Care event brought together patient safety and quality leaders from across NHS Wales to explore how to strengthen learning, improve the use of data and reduce avoidable harm. Held on 23 June 2026 at St. David’s Cardiff, it was a collaboration between RLDatix and the Welsh Risk Pool. All places were booked within four days of the date being announced.
Paul Sanders confirmed that RLDatix is committed to continuing the partnership and willing to host future events in collaboration with the Welsh Risk Pool. Feedback from delegates will be collated and shared, including insights from the workshop sessions.
The day’s sessions converged around five consistent themes: the need to shift from reactive reporting to proactive safety intelligence; the importance of connecting fragmented data across systems and organisations; the role of culture, leadership and clinical engagement in making learning land; the power of celebrating good practice alongside investigating harm; and the opportunity for Wales, with its collaborative culture and shared systems, to lead in building a genuine learning system.
Patient Safety Learning’s Hub (patientsafetylearning.org) offers free resources, networks and a platform for sharing good practice. RLDatix continues to work in partnership with NHS Wales through DCIQ and its broader product and innovation programmes. Delegates were encouraged to share feedback and continue the conversations started during the event.
