Equity is a key domain of healthcare quality. High quality, safe healthcare should be available to all, regardless of geography, income, race, gender, sex or any other characteristic. However, systemic biases and barriers are widespread. In addition to well-established inequalities in health and in access to healthcare, it is becoming increasingly clear that there are also inequalities in the quality and safety of patient care and that we need to do more to address them.

BMJ Quality and Safety is an academic journal that strives to encourage the science of improvement, debate and new thinking on improving the quality of healthcare. Based on our concerns around inequalities in quality and safety and building on a recent editorial¹, BMJ Quality and Safety would like to publish a series of themed papers on the topic of “Striving for equity in the quality and safety of patient care.” We therefore invite submissions of original research, quality improvement reports, viewpoint articles and reviews related to this topic from our international clinical, quality improvement and research community.

This themed call will include submissions in the following categories:

1. Original Research: these will report research relevant to addressing inequities in the quality and safety of health care. They may present high quality evidence describing problems of inequalities or inequities and shedding light on the underlying mechanisms, and/or describe the robust evaluation of interventions intended to address them. The journal is interprofessional and welcomes articles from anyone whose work is relevant, including healthcare professionals, managers, researchers from a wide range of disciplines, policy makers, and information technologists.
2. Quality Improvement Reports: well-conducted quality improvement studies addressing inequities in healthcare quality, reported in line with the SQUIRE 2.0 (Standards for Quality Improvement Reporting Excellence) guidelines.
3. Viewpoints: these will be essays presenting a perspective or viewpoint on the topic. These should add a new argument to a debate or present a new perspective, as well as appropriately drawing on the existing international literature.
4. Systematic review: these will be any literature review relating to this topic that systematically synthesises quantitative or qualitative evidence and adds something that is more than the “sum of the parts” of the included studies.
5. Research and Reporting Methodologies: articles that aim to advance research methodology or reporting standards related to inequities in patient safety and quality improvement.

For specific formatting requirements, please refer to our author guidelines.

Manuscripts will be subject to our usual process of editorial and peer review. Please follow the online submission link https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/bmjqs to submit your manuscript(s). Upon submission, please select the theme name from the dropdown menu and mention the themed call in your cover letter. BMJ Quality and Safety is a hybrid journal and authors can choose to pay an Article Processing fee for open access publication. For further information, please visit the ‘authors’ page of our website.

–Bryony Dean Franklin and Eric Thomas, Editors-in-Chief, BMJ Quality and Safety

References
1. Franklin BD, Thomas EJ, Soong C. Advancing equity, diversity and inclusion at BMJ Quality and Safety. BMJ Quality & Safety 2023;32:301-304 https://qualitysafety.bmj.com/content/32/6/301