Just and Learning Culture in Healthcare Contexts
Free
Build safer, stronger healthcare teams. Learn how just and learning cultures replace blame with openness, accountability, and shared learning to improve care and staff wellbeing.
CPD
3 hours
Online - Part-time
3 CPD
Coming soon
About
Every healthcare professional knows that near misses and adverse events can happen, but what matters most is how we respond.
This short CPD course, offered by RCSI's Graduate School of Healthcare Management and developed with support from NDTP Development Funding, introduces you to the principles of a just and learning culture and shows how shifting away from blame creates safer systems, open reporting, and stronger teams.
Across four focused modules you’ll explore the difference between blame and non-punitive approaches, understand the role of human and system errors, and uncover the barriers that prevent open and safe reporting. Through real scenarios and practical reflection, you’ll learn how to support patients, colleagues and organisations when incidents occur.
By the end, you’ll have the insight and strategies to foster a culture of psychological safety where mistakes lead to learning, not fear, and better care for all.
Distinguish blame vs. just culture approaches
Understand human and system errors in care
Learn restorative responses to incidents
Recognise barriers to incident reporting
Apply reflective case-based learning
Support safer, more open healthcare teams
Suitable for
This course is designed for healthcare professionals at all levels who want to strengthen patient safety, foster open reporting, and build supportive, just and learning cultures within their teams and organisations.
What you will learn
Explore retributive vs restorative approaches to safety incidents.
Understand active and latent errors and their impact on safety.
Examine why underreporting occurs and how to enable openness.
Faculty highlight
Biography
Dr Kristina Brown
Dr Brown’s research interests are restorative just cultures, psychological safety and clinical leadership in healthcare organisations, in which she actively researches and collaborates with healthcare organisations.
Find out more
Course information
This course was developed with support from NDTP Development Funding, which supports initiatives that enhance postgraduate medical training.
By the end of this course, participants will be able to:
- Explain the difference between blame cultures and Just and Learning Cultures in healthcare.
- Distinguish between person and system approaches to error.
- Analyse the impact of organisational responses to incidents on staff, patients, and learning.
- Identify barriers to incident reporting and strategies to support reporting behaviour.
- Apply restorative approaches to incident response that promote learning, accountability, and patient safety.
This course has no formal graded assessment. Learners complete a short pre-course quiz to benchmark their knowledge and a post-course quiz to measure progress. Throughout the modules, interactive elements such as case studies, reflection prompts, and multiple-choice questions allow learners to test their understanding and apply key concepts.
Admissions
There are no entry requirements or formal application. Simply click 'enrol now', complete our short form and receive your link to access the course.
RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences is delighted to offer this short course free of charge.