World Patient Safety Day 2026: WPSD and Safe Care for Noncommunicable Diseases
Table of Contents
World Patient Safety Day falls on 17 September each year. In 2026, the World Health Organization has set its theme as safe care for noncommunicable diseases, the long-term conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and chronic respiratory disease that develop gradually rather than spread from person to person. These noncommunicable diseases contributed to 9 in 10 deaths in Australia in 2022. For support workers, carers, and family members without clinical training, recognising these risks is the first step toward stopping them before they cause harm.
What is World Patient Safety Day 2026?
World Patient Safety Day began in 2019, when the World Health Assembly adopted a resolution calling for coordinated global action on patient safety. It has been observed on 17 September every year since. The day exists to raise global awareness of preventable patient harm in health care and to encourage global solidarity among governments, health services, and communities toward practical action that helps improve patient safety and reduce avoidable harm. In 2026, noncommunicable diseases are the focus and “Safe care for life!” is the slogan.
Noncommunicable diseases are behind about three-quarters of deaths worldwide. People managing one can move between GPs, specialists, hospitals, pharmacies, and home or residential care over many years. Globally, around 1 in 10 patients experience harm while receiving care, and about half of that harm is considered preventable.
Common Noncommunicable Diseases Seen In Australian Care And Support
Noncommunicable diseases seen across Australian care and support settings include cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, and chronic respiratory conditions such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, alongside arthritis, chronic kidney disease, and osteoporosis. Half of the population was living with at least one of these conditions in 2022, and 22% had two or more at once. Medications, appointments, and routines that help one condition can interfere with another, so support workers and family carers can end up needing to track these interactions themselves.
The World Patient Safety Day 2026 theme is aimed squarely at this population. People managing more than one condition move between multiple health and support providers over long periods, and each additional condition or provider adds another point where risk can compound. In residential aged care and disability support in particular, a single resident or client may be living with several of these conditions at once, taking multiple medications, and needing physical assistance with daily tasks.
Medication Errors
People managing long-term conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, or a mental health condition can take several medicines prescribed by more than one doctor, and clinicians, pharmacists, and carers have more to check each time another medicine is added. This complexity is called polypharmacy.
Historically, medication-related problems have been linked to an estimated 2% to 3% of hospital admissions in Australia, and recent national data shows progress in some of the higher-risk medicine groups tied to noncommunicable disease treatment. Dispensing of antipsychotic medicines for people aged 65 and over fell by 11% between 2016–17 and 2020–21, and hospitalisations linked to insulin-related adverse events fell 10% from a peak in 2021–22, even as diabetes diagnoses continued to rise. Those figures show that attention to specific high-risk medicines can change outcomes, even as the underlying disease becomes more common.
Manual Handling Risks
People with reduced mobility from stroke, arthritis, advanced heart disease, or another long-term condition can need physical help to move between a bed, a chair, and a bathroom, and an unsafe transfer can hurt either person involved. The person being moved can fall, tear their skin, or dislocate their shoulder or hip if the transfer is not done safely. The person doing the lifting can injure their own back or shoulder using poor technique or without the right equipment.
Health care and social assistance is one of the industries most affected by this kind of injury in Australia. Nursing, care, and support workers had a serious claim frequency rate for musculoskeletal injury 2.3 times the national average in 2022–23. Body stressing is the technical term for injuries caused by lifting, supporting, or moving people or objects, and it was behind an average of 47.6% of this workforce’s serious claims over the decade to 2022–23, against 37.8% for all occupations. More than one in three claims caused by another person rather than an object involved a patient or resident being moved.
Building Safer Systems For Ongoing Chronic Disease Care
Safer noncommunicable disease care comes from how well different parts of the health system communicate with each other, not from any single fix. The World Health Organization’s approach for 2026 centres on strengthening primary health care, the services people see most often such as general practice and community health. It also calls for people living with noncommunicable diseases to work alongside health workers, health care leaders, and policymakers in identifying safety risks and helping shape solutions, rather than being treated only as the ones the risks happen to.
In Australia, coordinated safety systems includes things like the National Residential Medication Charts used in aged care, which standardise how medicines are ordered, given, and reviewed for residents rather than leaving each facility to design its own paperwork. The same logic applies to the accreditation standards that hospitals and other services are required to follow, which set out exactly how medication risks, patient identification, and clinical handover are to be managed. For families and support workers outside formal health settings, the same principle holds on a smaller scale. Knowing what medicines a person takes, why, and what to watch for makes a family member or carer an active part of the safety system rather than a bystander.
cing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo.
Training For Manual Handling And Medication Administration
Our manual handling training and our medication administration training cover safe transfers for people with reduced mobility, and safe, accurate medicine administration for people managing one or more long-term conditions. Both courses are designed for people who support others in a caring role, whether that is paid work or family care.
If you support someone managing a long-term condition at work or at home, enrol in our manual handling training, our medication administration training, or both. World Patient Safety Day 2026 is ultimately about these everyday skills, not a single gesture on 17 September.
FAQs
What Does Continuum of Care Mean for a Noncommunicable Disease?
The continuum of care describes the full sequence of stages a person with a long-term condition may move through, from prevention and early detection through diagnosis, treatment, long-term management, and self-care.
Is Manual Handling Training a Legal Requirement in Australian Aged Care?
Yes, work health and safety laws across Australia require employers to manage the risks of hazardous manual tasks. Aged care providers are also expected to satisfy accreditation standards that cover safe resident handling as part of quality care.
What Is the Difference Between a Medication Error and a Side Effect?
A medication error is a preventable mistake in prescribing, dispensing, or giving a medicine, such as the wrong dose, the wrong medicine, or a missed dose. A side effect is an unwanted but expected reaction to a medicine that has been given correctly. The two can look similar to someone without clinical training, which is one reason accurate record keeping is useful when more than one person is involved in a person’s care.
