Risk assessment is essential to ensure safety in hospitals. However, hospitals have paid little attention to risk assessment, and a number of problems have already been identified in the literature regarding current risk assessment practice, such as insufficient risk assessment guidance, and bias in risk scoring.
This research aimed to improve current risk assessment practice in hospitals in the National Health Service (NHS)(NHS)in England. To address this aim, current risk assessment practice was investigated, and a new risk assessment approach was designed by the use of mixed methods. 100One hundred hospitals’ risk assessment documents were reviewed to examine the current recommended risk assessment practice. Interviews and questionnaires were conducted; a risk management system from a single hospital was investigated; and strategic risks from 34thirty-four hospitals were reviewed, in order to examine how risks are assessed in actual practice. Following that, the proposed approach was designed by conducting requirements analysis, and user feedback was received for the proposed approach, through conducting interviews and questionnaires.