Promoting best practices for safe and high quality patient care and extending the principle that patient and worker safety are intimately linked are basic objectives of the Quality Plan of the Spanish Ministry of Health. This presentation focuses on those initiatives aimed at the creation and implementation of safe and quality care for patients in hospitals and safe working procedures for health personnel. There are specific issues considered of vital importance in order to achieve safe and quality care in hospitals in a bidirectional way. These include:

1. establishing a Culture of Safety,

2. creating a Patient Safety Plan,

3. addressing the Health Care Workers perception of risks,

4. performing Risk Assessments,

5. creating protocols for the handling of dangerous drugs,

6. establishing protocols for Infection Control,

7. establishing protocols for handling adverse events and

8. establishing bidirectional channels for the communication of information.

The purpose of the presentation is to serve as a reference of experiences, suggesting practical and viable ways that allow for the implementation of these concepts.