SAFER: A mnemonic to improve safety-netting advice in prescribing practice

When a patient seeks medical attention following a head injury, the severity of the head injury is assessed and a clinical decision is made as to whether a patient needs to be admitted for either treatment, or for a period of medical observation. If admission to hospital is not required, the patient is sent home with advice to return if their symptoms worsen, or do not resolve. This is known as safety-netting advice (Silverston, 2016). It is essential for safe practice that clinicians know how to give appropriate safety-netting advice correctly, as not providing the correct advice to patients may result in a patient not recognising the need to seek medical attention when it is required. In practice, safety-netting is employed to help manage diagnostic uncertainty safely and to reduce the risk of harm to patients from errors in diagnosis, failures in treatment and from the unpredictable, serious complications that can occur during the course of what are normally minor illnesses (Silverston, 2014a).