Patient Safety has become a leading item on health care agendas worldwide. The Institute of Medicine’s 1999 report To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System was particularly instrumental in heightening awareness and promoting systems changes inside health care organizations. Despite Patient Safety being a universal concern, much of the literature to date has focussed on identifying concerns and recommending improvements for an adult setting. In this issue we have assembled a group of international experts in pediatric patient safety to share with us the scope, the sciences and strategies for making health care safe for children.