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Abstract In the early 1990s, evidence began to accumulate that there was a global problem of error in healthcare—patients were being unintentionally harmed through clinical errors by their carers. In 2020, an OECD report concluded that, ‘The direct cost of unsafe care in health systems of developed countries is estimated at 12.6% of health expenditure’. Such errors have consequences for those directly involved (patients, their families, doctors, and nurses) and for the wider economy. Panagioti’s 2019 meta-analysis identified a prevalence of preventable patient harm of 6% and 12% of these preventable patient harms were severe or led to death. Error in healthcare therefore remains prevalent, a decade after the first 2009 edition of this book. Rather than wait for a state-organised structured approach to training healthcare staff in techniques to reduce and mitigate the effects of error, in this book we offer the reader practical advice about simple techniques that they can start using tomorrow, advice based on the approach of high-reliability organisations such as the railway, petrochemical, and aviation industries. Small changes in the behaviour and communication techniques of the individual doctor and nurse can make a big difference, because they can break a chain of system errors. This book is designed to make you, the frontline doctor and nurse, safer in your day-to-day work.