About us

We are one of three national Patient Safety Translational Research Centres (PSTRCs) funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR).

Our centre is a partnership between The University of Manchester and the Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust in collaboration with the University of Nottingham. It is funded for five years until March 2023.

Our mission

The Greater Manchester PSTRC’s mission is to work with patients, carers and health & social care staff and providers to develop and test ways of doing things (interventions) to improve patient safety across four key themes, which are:

• Safety Informatics
• Medication Safety
• Safer Care Systems and Transitions (including a subtheme on Behavioural Science)
• Safety in Marginalised Groups (split into Patients and Carers, and Mental Health subthemes)

Translational research

We carry out translational research. Translational means we develop then test new ideas which can be picked up and used by healthcare providers to improve patient safety. Our goal is for this to be done both regionally and nationally, so our work can have a positive impact in making health and social care safer for everyone.

We know it’s important for patients and members of the public to be involved in the design and testing of our research, because they help make sure it can make a real difference to patient safety.

We have three core aims:

1. To do research that develops and tests new digital ways of changing behaviour (behavioural interventions) in primary care (such as in general practices) and where patients move between care settings (for example, when a patient leaves hospital and returns to their own home, or care home). An example of this could be a training programme that can change the behaviour of patients or healthcare staff.
2. To be an innovator in researching, developing and testing new ways of doing things that are ready to be picked up and used by health and social care providers, first regionally then nationally.
3. To increase the understanding of patient safety so that researchers can work with patients, members of the public and health and social care staff to make healthcare safer for patients.

Read more about our plans in our brochure NIHR Greater Manchester PSTRC 2017-2022 The Next Five Years.

The impact of GM PSTRC research on patient safety

Our research is already making a difference to patients. Read our impact case studies to find out more.

Our partners

We recognise the value of involving partners and therefore work closely with:

• The other two PSTRCs:  Imperial PSTRC, (based at Imperial College London) and Yorkshire and Humber PSTRC (a partnership between Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and the University of Leeds)
• NIHR Greater Manchester Applied Research Collaboration (ARC)
• NIHR School for Primary Care Research
• NIHR School for Social Care Research
• Health Innovation Manchester
• Academic Health Science Networks (AHSNs)
• Patient Safety Collaboratives
• Local authority and industry partners.