WHO Surgical Safety Checklist

The WHO Second Global Safety Challenge was designed to improve surgical safety by ensuring that surgical teams adhere to proven standards of care supported by the WHO Guidelines for Safe Surgery. The external lead for the Safe Surgery Saves Lives team is Atul Gawande, Associate Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School and Associate Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard School of Public Health. The WHO Surgical Safety Checklist has been shown to improve compliance with standards and decrease complications from surgery in pilot sites in high- middle- and low-income settings. Read More »

New scientific evidence supports the WHO findings that a surgical safety checklist could save hundreds of thousands of lives. Read More »

Supporting materials and information from hospitals that are using the checklist around the world is available here »

The NPSA issued a patient safety alert in February 2009 requiring the checklist to be used for all patients undergoing surgery in the NHS. Read More »