ABSTRACT
The improvement of patient safety is undoubtedly based on moral, ethical and, at the same time, economic considerations. Therefore, ensuring safety is the primary responsibility of both individual healthcare workers and the healthcare system. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) draws attention to the cost of errors and failures, the causes of the damage, and the ability to reduce them effectively. The World Health Organisation (WHO) points out that the culture of punishment is a significant barrier to patient safety. Fear of criticism and subsequent punishment does not allow for rational analysis of the causes of an incident. It is this newly developed patient safety culture that is the biggest challenge for the European Union (EU) Member States, including Latvia. Compensation systems compensate for the harm caused to a person. However, in practice, these systems fail to ensure improvement of healthcare quality. In Latvia, medical practitioners are not protected against liability in terms of compensation for harm caused.
