• Esther Van Poel, Pierre Vanden Bussche, Claire Collins, Susan Lagaert, Sara Ares-Blanco, Maria Pilar Astier-Pena, Jonila Gabrani, Raquel Gomez Bravo, Kathryn Hoffmann, Zalika Klemenc-Ketis, Christian Mallen, Ana Luisa Neves, Zlata Ožvačić, Victoria Tkachenko, Dorien Zwart, and Sara Willems.
• Department of Public Health and Primary Care, Ghent University, Corneel Heymanslaan 10, 9000 Ghent, Belgium.
• Fam Pract. 2024 Oct 30.

BackgroundThis article aims to examine patient safety in general practice during COVID-19.MethodsIn total, 5489 GP practices from 37 European countries and Israel filled in the online self-reported PRICOV-19 survey between November 2020 and December 2021. The outcome measures include 30 patient safety indicators on structure, process, and outcome.ResultsThe data showed that structural problems often impeded patient safety during COVID-19, as 58.6% of practices (3209/5479) reported limitations related to their building or infrastructure. Nevertheless, GP practices rapidly changed their processes, including the appointment systems. Implementation proved challenging as, although 76.1% of practices (3751/4932) developed a protocol to answer calls from potential COVID patients, only 34.4% (1252/3643) always used it. The proportion of practices reported having sufficient protected time in general practitioners' schedules to review guidelines remained consistent when comparing the pre-COVID (34.2%,1647/4813) with the COVID period (33.2%,1600/4813). Overall, 42.8% of practices (1966/4590) always informed home care services when patients were diagnosed with COVID-19, while this decreased to 30.1% for other major infectious diseases (1341/4458). Most practices reported at least one incident of delayed care in patients with an urgent condition, most often because the patient did not come to the practice sooner (60.4%, 2561/4237). Moreover, 31.1% of practices (1349/4199) always organized a team discussion when incidents happened. Overall, large variations were found across countries and patient safety indicators.ConclusionsThe results demonstrated that European GP practices adopted numerous measures to deliver safe care during COVID-19. However, multilayered interventions are needed to improve infection control and GP practice accessibility in future pandemics.© The Author(s) 2024. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For commercial re-use, please contact reprints@oup.com for reprints and translation rights for reprints. All other permissions can be obtained through our RightsLink service via the Permissions link on the article page on our site—for further information please contact journals.permissions@oup.com.

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