This review provides an overview of the Patient Safety First campaign – an ambitious national campaign that aimed to engage a large number of healthcare professionals in patient safety.

The objective was to make patient safety a top priority in healthcare organisations and establish a mindset of no avoidable death and no avoidable harm.

The campaign focused on five specific interventions and areas of patient safety:

• Leadership
• Deterioration
• Critical care
• Preoperative care
• High risk medicines.

It used social movement models and social networks to engage with a broad range of professionals and organisations using only modest resources.

This campaign review provides insight into the results achieved, the lessons learned, and the implications for future patient safety programmes.