ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the question of everyday clinical work [ECW] occurring within a complex adaptive system [CAS] such as health care. The focus on ECW provides a useful bridge from Safety-I to Safety-II and opens a broad panorama of events and experiences that will allow for a better understanding of organisational resilience. With a Safety-I orientation, the traditional approach to improving safety and quality has involved a focus on examples of unintentional harm occurring during the provision of services to patients. While such a retrospective approach to learning has led to some positive results, it unfortunately has distracted us from analysing and learning from the majority of events where there has been no harm.
