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Underpinning all CIRCL activities is the commitment to fostering a culture of safety and a just culture in the pharmacy, which:
- Considers wider systemic issues: Looking beyond individual actions to understand the system factors that contributed to an incident or near miss.
- Enables learning without fear: Creating an environment where pharmacy professionals feel safe to report incidents and near misses without fear of inappropriate blame or retribution.
- Distinguishes types of behaviour: Recognizing the difference between inadvertent human error (which is generally not subject to sanction) and deliberate acts or unprofessional conduct (which may require accountability).
- Focuses on understanding: Emphasizing why people acted as they did by considering the context and contributing system factors rather than jumping to blame.
- Provides support: Offering emotional and practical support to healthcare workers involved in incidents, including encouraging peer support when appropriate.
This approach creates an environment where reporting is encouraged, learning is valued, and safety improvements can flourish. Pharmacy managers play a key role in fostering this culture by working with owners, employers, and pharmacy staff to promote learning and quality improvement that supports patient safety.