Human Factors Newsletter October 2025

Hello everyone and welcome to the October e-Newsletter from Scotland’s Human Factors Learning Network for Health & Social Care.

To join our Network please email: HumanFactors@nes.scot.nhs.uk

 Please visit our evolving Online Hub to find out more about Human Factors and access useful NES resources for supporting integration across education and practice.
 
Finally, please feel free to help promote our work by encouraging colleagues in your own organisations and professional networks to get in touch to sign-up.  

Quick Updates
Date for the Diary!
Our next 1-day National HF Network and Symposium meeting is scheduled for Wednesday 17th December 2025 (a programme with details of speakers, presentations and workshops to follow as soon as possible). Please note that this will be held at the NES Bothwell Street office in Glasgow and spaces are limited.

Please email: humanfactors@nes.scot.nhs.uk to register interest in attending.

Teaching Human Factors – The Brilliant Basics!

We’re pleased to announce that Phase 1 of our Brilliant Basics Human Factors (HF) Teaching Packs will launch during October 2025. The target audience are educators at all levels in health and social care practice and academia. Our aim is to ensure that the understanding and teaching of HF is based on the discipline’s foundational theory and practices and begins to correct many of the myths and misunderstandings that often prevail in the UK and beyond.

The initial set of Teaching Packs will include:

Introduction to Foundational Human Factors
The Systems Approach
Designing for People
Exploring Human Work
Human-Centred Design of Effective Work Procedures
Safety Culture

The prototype Teaching packs will each contain a Facilitators Guide with Learning Objectives and Lesson Plans, a PowerPoint Slide Deck with Instructional Notes, Interactive Activities and Teach Back with Learners where they can apply related concepts and tools. The packs are flexible and can be adapted to suit contexts. Educators are strongly encouraged to embed the teaching packs within existing training programmes, educational initiatives and ad hoc teaching sessions, particularly those with patient safety and quality improvement components.

Future teaching packs will focus on topics such as: HF and Simulation, HF and Quality Improvement, Systems Thinking for Safety Learning, Systems Thinking for Everyday Work, Care Interface Design Tool, Hierarchical Task Analysis, Dynamic Risk Assessment, and Link Analysis.

Open Access CPD Module on Foundational Human Factors

We’re looking for volunteers to test out a new Open Access CPD Module on The Foundations of Human Factors for Health & Social care professionals (Level 1). The target audience is broad and diverse, and includes academics, educators and researchers; clinicians and social work/care professionals and support staff at all levels; simulation educators and transformative practitioners; clinical scientists, engineers and technicians; risk, safety, improvement, and governance advisors and leaders; and clinical digital safety and procurement specialists

The aim of this Module is to introduce examples of foundational HF principles and tools that will help you think critically about how you can apply them to:

Improve the quality and safety of health and social care services
Protect and enhance the wellbeing of our workforces.
Seamlessly embed HF in education and training programmes.
Teach basic HF to health and social care teams.

The Module content is aligned with the Professional Competency Checklist and Proficiency Scale of the Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors as well as the NES competency framework (Informed, Skilled, Enhanced, Specialist). To get involved please email: humanfactors@nes.scot.nhs.uk

Organisational Safety Learning Reviews

From November 2024 to July 2025, a pilot programme teaching Human Factors for Safety Learning Reviewers was successfully delivered to a cohort of 60 participants. Designed to enhance understanding and application of human factors in safety learning reviews, the programme blended online modules, and webinars. A flash evaluation, based on early feedback, revealed strong appreciation for these learning formats, practical resources, and peer engagement opportunities. Participants particularly valued the reflective log, webinars, and real-world examples that brought theory to life. While time commitment was noted as a common challenge, many found the programme empowering, with one reviewer stating it “enhanced my knowledge and has given me the confidence to facilitate SAERs.”

A full evaluation report, based on survey responses and post-pilot participant interviews, will be produced in early 2026 to capture deeper insights and impact. More news to follow!

Research & Innovation

Our Learning Response Review Tool was codesigned with experts and practitioners involved in either conducting Organisational Safety Learning Reviews or writing or approving related written reports. The tool enables users to compare and improve current practices against established Systems Thinking principles for safety-related learning. It has also been adapted as a brief checklist aid to guide facilitators in team-based forums such as mortality and morbidity meetings and similar. More details can be found here: https://learn.nes.nhs.scot/85656

During COVID-19 we worked closely with colleagues in NHS Ayrshire and Arran to undertake a Human Factors analysis of vaccination facilities. One of our research outputs has now been published in the Applied Ergonomics journal. While the vaccination context was COVID-19 related, the main findings will also be of interest to those involved in the design of any vaccination process or facility, particularly in terms of increasing efficiency and reducing risks. The article can be accessed here: https://learn.nes.nhs.scot/82261

In the absence of evidence around the process involved in conducting significant event analysis in primary care, Dr Karena Hanley, led a Delphi analysis study to identify a set of related quality indicators of practical use to teams. The full Open Access article can be downloaded here: https://bmjopenquality.bmj.com/content/14/3/e003282

In healthcare simulation community there is strong interest globally in the integration of Human Factors (HF) theory, concepts and methods to aid the design of related educational activities and improvement and redesign practices. While much has been published around the need for HF integration in simulation education very limited consideration has been given to identifying foundational concepts and approaches from the HF discipline that would have utility in “adding value” to everyday simulation scenario designs and improvement activities. This study aimed to take the first steps in closing this gap and offer a set of candidate HF principles for active consideration by the healthcare simulation education community. The article can be accessed here: https://eprints.staffs.ac.uk/8845/