In October 2004 the World Health Organization (WHO) launched the World Alliance for Patient Safety (WAPS) in response to a World Health Assembly Resolution (2002) urging WHO and Member States to pay the closest possible attention to the problem of patient safety. The Alliance raises awareness and political commitment to improve the safety of healthcare and facilitates the development of patient safety policy and practice in all WHO Member States. Each year, the Alliance delivers a number of programmes covering systemic and technical aspects to improve patient safety around the world. These include both a worldwide safe surgery initiative with the Safe Surgery Saves Lives campaign launched in Europe in January, 2009 and a Technology programme, which has been one of the original work streams of WAPS and part of its Forward Programme since 2006. The goal of the Safe Surgery Saves Lives Challenge is to improve the safety of surgical care around the world by ensuring adherence to proven standards of care in all WHO member states. The WHO Surgical Safety Checklist has improved compliance with standards and decreased complications from surgery in eight pilot hospitals where it was evaluated. The checklist is now being disseminated around the world in a variety of resource settings. Based on the experience of the Surgical Safety Checklist and current efforts in the Technology Programme the World Alliance for Patient Safety is an ideal collaborator for this project. Technology presents a number of untapped opportunities for patient safety, as well as representing a potential hazard, and is a common thread shared across many areas of the World Alliance's work on patient safety. The WAPS Technology Programme currently has four work streams being developed in this area: information technology for patient safety, making technology safer, introducing new technology safely, training and simulation technology. All four of these work streams relate directly to this EU proposal on safety in robotic surgery. The WAPS Technology Programme also has one of the world's experts on Robotic Surgery, Lord Ara Darzi, of Imperial College, London and current Health Minister for the United Kingdom as a key member of their Technology Programme team.

role in the project: WAPS' role in the project is manifold: firstly it will act in a strategic way to link the technical development with the World Health Organization's work on safety checklists. This work will be based on the global success of the Safe Surgery Saves Lives checklist and could provide more detailed checklists to guide the design of the workplan guiding the interaction of humans and robots in the operating room. Secondly, WAPS will guide the introduction and will act in a strategic role for the project advise on the project direction and integration of the results of this study into wider European initiatives. As the only global organization in health care safety, WAPS is particularly well positioned to aid the SAFROS coalition in integrating the innovations developed as part of other work packages into the global community of health care quality and safety practitioners and organizations. Finally, WAPS is one of a handful of organizations who have experience evaluating safety issues across countries and the organization will bring its extensive experience in measurement and evaluation of programme implementation to support the SAFROS team. WAPS will help generalize the findings of this study to a broader European audience.