Lagos Unveils 39-Member Taskforce On Patient Safety, Targets Accountable Healthcare System
The Lagos State Government has inaugurated a 39-member Task Force on Clinical Governance and Patient Safety to strengthen healthcare standards, accountability and patient safety across public and private health facilities in the state.
Inaugurating the task force in Ikeja, the Commissioner for Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi, said the initiative would adopt a system-wide approach to healthcare delivery, noting that private health facilities outnumber government-owned facilities in Lagos.
Abayomi said clinical governance must extend beyond public hospitals, stressing that “we are not the Ministry of Health for government facilities alone; we are the Ministry of Health for Lagos.”
He said the initiative would promote clinical audits, evidence-based medicine, digital tools and continuous professional development, while also improving protections for healthcare workers.
The Chairman of the task force and Special Adviser to the Governor on Health, Dr. Kemi Ogunyemi, said the body would develop a Lagos State Clinical Governance and Patient Safety Framework covering minimum standards, incident reporting, patient feedback and statewide implementation.
She stressed that the initiative was aimed at learning from failures and improving care, saying, “Behind every incident report is a person who came to us for help.”
Ogunyemi said the task force would operate through seven pillars: leadership and governance, clinical effectiveness, risk management, patient involvement, clinical audit, staff development and information management.
The Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Health, Dr. Dayo Lajide, described the initiative as timely, saying clinical governance would make quality and safety the responsibility of the entire health system rather than an issue left to individual healthcare workers.
The task force has a three-month mandate to strengthen existing quality-improvement initiatives and make recommendations for safer, more accountable and patient-centred healthcare delivery across Lagos.
