Safety culture cards introduction

Safety culture cards
Public Services Delivery Scotland (PSD Scotland)

Safety Culture Cards are useful in Health and Care teams because they help teams:

  • Build shared understanding about safety
  • Reflect on and improve behaviours and processes
  • Hold meaningful, structured discussions
  • Learn from each other’s experiences
  • Identify priorities for local improvement
  • Strengthen teamwork and psychological safety.

What is safety culture?

Safety culture can be described as our:

1

Values

What is important
2

Behaviours

The way we do things
around here
3

Beliefs

How things work

Safety culture has been shown to be a key predictor of safety performance in many industries. It is the difference between a safe organisation and an accident waiting to happen. Thinking and talking about our safety culture is essential for us to understand what we do well, and where we need to improve. These cards are designed to help us to do this.

Organisation of the cards

There are several individual cards for each of the following ‘safety culture domains’. Each card introduces a different issue for reflection or discussions by the Care Team.

Leadership, management and supervisor commitment
Responsibility and involvement
Teamwork and communication
Just culture, reporting and learning
Resourcing
Risk awareness and management

Guide to use the cards

Please click here for the 'Guide to use these cards'.

Reflection form

Please click on the button below, or this link links to external website, to go to a form to record your reflections.

The form will open in a new tab.

Once submitted, the data in the form will be deleted after one hour. Please email the form to yourself for your records. You can then download and save the form.

Editorial Information

Last reviewed: 25/05/2026

Next review date: 31/12/2026

Reviewer name(s): Paul Watson.