Clinical Safety Research Unit

About us

While healthcare brings enormous benefits, errors in medicine are common and patients are frequently harmed. These incidents are serious for patients and a massive and relentless drain on scarce healthcare resources.

The Clinical Safety Research Unit (CSRU) was established in Imperial College in September 2002, with an initial grant from Smith and Nephew Foundation. The current programme builds on research developed over 15 years at the Clinical Risk Unit, University College London.

In 2007, the CSRU became affiliated with the Imperial Centre for Patient Safety and Service Quality (CPSSQ), an umbrella organisation for a number of specialised research units, created with the aim of improving patient safety and the quality of services within the NHS.

Our aim

The CSRU was established to carry out research on safety in healthcare with the aim of understanding the nature, scale and causes of harm and of making healthcare safer for patients and their families. Our aim is to carry out research directly aimed at enhancing the safety of healthcare and, equally important, providing a training environment for clinicians and researchers.