Charles Vincent trained as a Clinical Psychologist and worked in the British NHS for several years. Since 1985 he has carried out research on the causes of harm to patients, the consequences for patients and staff and methods of improving the safety of healthcare. He established the Clinical Risk Unit at University College in 1995 where he was Professor of Psychology before moving to the Department of Surgery and Cancer at Imperial College in 2002. He is the editor of Clinical Risk Management (BMJ Publications, 2^nd edition, 2001), author of Patient Safety (2^ned edition 2010) and author of many papers on medical error, risk and patient safety. With Rene Amalberti he published ‘Safer healthcare: strategies for the real world’ Springer, Open Access (2016).  From 1999 to 2003 he was a Commissioner on the UK Commission for Health Improvement and has advised on patient safety in many inquiries and committees including the recent Berwick Review. In 2007 he was appointed Director of the National Institute of Health Research Centre for Patient Safety & Service Quality at Imperial College Healthcare Trust. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and Emeritus National Institute of Health Research Senior Investigator. In 2014 he took up a new most as Health Foundation professorial fellow in the Department of Psychology, University of Oxford where he continues his work on safety in healthcare and led the Oxford Region NHS Patient Safety Collaborative and was Director of Oxford Healthcare Improvement.