Psychological Safety

This chapter explores how Psychological Safety in supervision promotes a constructive, supportive learning environment in primary care.

It also highlights how Psychological Safety is essential for supervisee engagement, quality improvement, and achieving high-quality patient care, and includes opportunities to consider how you and your practice team can overcome barriers to Psychological Safety and foster an inclusive learning environment.

Learning outcomes:

• Define psychological safety in work environments and outline its four stages.

• Identify barriers to psychologically safe supervision and demonstrate the benefits of psychological safety in supervision.

• Explore the relationship between psychological safety, accountability for performance, and learning, with reference to the the NHS safer learning environment charter.

Chapter resources:

The following resources are available to share with your practice team or to support you to work through the workshop learning:

• A narrated slide deck on the chapter is available to watch or download, so you and your team can work through it at your own pace.

• Workbooks with space to complete exercises and note your reflections on key concepts and reinforce learning; one in PowerPoint format to add your own responses, and one on PDF format which can be printed.

Additional resources

NHS Safe Learning Charter

The NHS Safe Learning Environment Charter supports the development of positive safety cultures and continuous learning across all NHS learning environments.  

The Charter has been designed for learners and those responsible for supporting learners and sets out the supportive learning environment required to allow learners to become well-rounded professionals with the right skills and knowledge to provide safe, high-quality, and compassionate care.