Annual Members' Meeting 2020

Strategic Objective 1: Quality of Care

Creating a learning organisation and culture of continuous improvement to reduce repeated harms and improve patient experience.

Our key achievements over the last year are:

Dealing with issues and complaints

From 1 April 2019 to 31st March 2020 we received 471 complaints and concerns and a total of 1891 PALS contacts. This compares to 537 complaints and concerns and 2015 PALS contacts received during the previous year. Our complaints management improvement plan launched last year to improve investigation and turnaround within the 25 day timeframe. This has been extremely successful with 100% of complaints achieving a final response within 25 days. We have a dedicated patient panel which works across various committees on important issues representing the voice of our patients.

Becoming a learning organisation

We have continued to build on our mission to become a learning organisation, focusing on patient experience and addressing patient expectations and anxieties as seen ‘through their eyes’ using Experience Based Co-design (EBCD) methodology.

Opportunities for our teams to review and improve the services we give to patients continue. Our colleagues attend multidisciplinary serious incident and mortality learning events where they can reflect in an open and safe environment looking at preventing harm to our patients and training needs. Simulation learning at ward level fuelled by learning identified from serious incidents ensures improved safety is implemented by staff in practice.

Improving medication safety remains one of the Trust’s top priorities and during Medication Safety Week in July the project team were out in force trying to raise awareness of medication safety issues and provide clinical colleagues with the opportunity to share their feedback and ideas around this important safety initiative. They shared short videos in which colleagues described a medication incident they have been involved with and the learning from this, encouraging honesty, transparency and sharing.

Strengthening our approach to harm-free care

Our ongoing commitment to the reduction of hospital associated harms has been strengthened with the appointment of our new Consultant Nurse in Harms Free Care, the first in the UK. This role brings together the hospital associated harms of falls, venous thromboembolism (VTE), pressure ulcers, catheter-associated urinary tract infections and harm associated with poor nutrition and hydration. The team will link in with community partners to build an understanding around harm in hospital and across our local health system.

Innovation in Quality

We continue to take an innovative and proactive approach to improving the quality of care for patients and the team. Some highlights from the last year include:

New Virtual Respiratory Clinic

As part of the Trust’s response to the COVID-19 situation we established a new type of virtual respiratory clinic, named the Respiratory Emergency Department (REED) Clinic. The only one of its kind in the UK, this service reduced the number of patients with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 requiring hospital admission, and facilitated safe discharge of patients no longer requiring oxygen into the community. The success of the clinic in such a short space of time is an indication of the success we are having providing patient focussed care in collaboration with multiple teams across the health system.

Exemplar Status for Interventional Radiology

The Interventional Radiology department based at St. Peter’s Hospital was awarded renewal of their Exemplar Status in April 2019 by the British Society of Interventional Radiology Quality Initiative (BSIRQI), an accolade only achieved by 33 NHS Trusts in the country. Exemplar sites are departments that have demonstrated a commitment to the development of high quality Interventional Radiology Services, have enrolled in the BSIRQI programme, and fulfilled the current criteria for award of exemplar status.

Award of prestigious Bliss Charter

Our Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) was awarded the prestigious Bliss Baby Charter, only the sixth NICU in the UK to receive this accolade. This demonstrates the commitment of the team to provide the highest quality intensive care to sick and premature babies, whilst intertwining a truly multidisciplinary, family centred approach at every stage of care. Bliss is the leading UK charity for babies who need intensive care so are a very well established and respected organisation.

Launch of new ‘Arts in Healthcare’ Project

Recognising the emerging evidence of the benefit of art in health for patients and colleagues, we have established a new creative arts steering group. They work to provide a positive and healing environment for all, including use of art, sculpture, music, theatre and architectural design.

#Hello my name is ... Healthcare Plays

Throughout 2019 we held a series of four healthcare plays for colleagues about different aspects of end-of life care. These explored themes such as finding resilience in the face of bereavement, the complexity of relationships and the loss of long term partnerships. For the last play we were privileged to welcome Chris Pointon, husband of the late Dr Kate Grainger and co-founder of the ‘#Hello my name is…’ campaign. Chris gave a fascinating and emotional talk about their experiences and to support the campaign we introduced bright, simple, yellow name badges for staff throughout the year.

Virtual Clinic Pilot for Musculoskeletal Team

The Physiotherapist Musculoskeletal team started the Attend Anywhere virtual clinic pilot project in October 2019 and this has been successful in reducing the need for patients to attend onsite consultations by over 25% compared to the national average. The system enables patients to attend appointments using video call from wherever they are and feedback from patients has been extremely positive.

Patients using the new virtual clinic service said:

‘Consultation was exactly how I thought it would have been face to face’

‘a time and facility saving exercise to be commended and should be used to triage all NHS appointments. Well Done!!’