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. 2025 Oct;22(5):e70165.
doi: 10.1111/tct.70165.

Human Factors: Affect Everyone, Involve Everyone

Amy Alcock  1 , Charlotte Addy  1 , Munawar Al-Mudhaffar  1 , Marianne Jenkins  1 , Melanie Cotter  1 , Martin Edwards  1
Affiliations

Human Factors: Affect Everyone, Involve Everyone

Amy Alcock et al. Clin Teach. 2025 Oct.

Abstract

Background: The NHS Patient Safety Syllabus highlights human factors as a core education theme for all healthcare staff. Despite this, no multidisciplinary Human Factors courses in NHS Wales have previously been reported.

Approach: A multidisciplinary Human Factors course was created and delivered by a faculty with varied clinical and teaching backgrounds. The 1-day course included an introductory lecture, themed workshops and discussion about practical applications using pre-filmed simulations. A pre-course handbook and online platform facilitated consolidation of the learning.

Evaluation: To date, we have run three courses with a total of 83 attendees: 38 doctors, 34 nurses, three managers, three midwives, two physician associates, one dentist, one pharmacist and one physiotherapist. All attendees were requested to complete pre-course and post-course questionnaires to ascertain their level of learning and knowledge gained. The majority, 62.0% (49/79) reported having minimal or no prior human factors teaching, clearly identifying the need for education. Confidence about human factors increased by 65.2% (17.7% [14/79] to 82.9% [68/82]), and awareness of the impact of human factors increased by 39.5% (54.4% [43/79] to 93.9% [77/82]) following the course. Qualitative feedback suggested that the course was well delivered, engaging and interesting. Comments also showed the learning would help attendees improve their clinical practice by sharing their knowledge.

Implications: This multidisciplinary pan-speciality Human Factors course has proven its need and value for all healthcare professionals. Next steps include increasing the number of courses delivered and widening the reach across the Health Board as well as gathering evidence on the patient safety implications.

Keywords: Human Factors; communication; conflict; decision‐making; interprofessional; simulation; situational awareness.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflicts of financial interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Course scores, out of 10, for usefulness, content, relevance, facilitation and organisation.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Course scores, out of 10, for individual components of the course.
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Word cloud representation of course evaluation comments.
FIGURE 4
FIGURE 4
Photos of course in action.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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