Our Acute Floor at CRH had a blast at the HSJ Patient Safety Awards in Manchester where 22 category winners were celebrated at the awards in Manchester on Tuesday 2nd July.
We were shortlisted in two categories - Best Emerging Solution for Patient Safety and Patient Safety Innovation of the Year.
Nick Scriven enlightened us all more about the team's big night. Our Chief Operating Officer, Helen Barker said she was honoured to have joined them. She said: " This was a team driven improvement. Working together they got a great outcome for patients, themselves as a team and our Trust. It’s been an absolute privilege to watch this - and the team grow - and I was honoured to be invited to join them on the night where this team spirit was definitely on display!".
Here Nick explains how it was totally a team night. He said: "It was very obvious at the awards that our table was the whole team represented as we were doctors, nurses, PAs, clerical staff and manager. Most other tables seemed to be bosses and managers."
More from Nick:
Why did we enter? We entered it as, for ages, we have been going to meetings across the country where other teams are demonstrating something 'new' which we sit back and think 'we've done that already and moved on' . I think we are very bad at realising just how good we are and it was high time we started to blow our own trumpet. It also was done to show the team what they had achieved and how much 'we' ( the bosses) appreciated the work.
Why's it good for our patients? For our patients we have shown that the processes now in place have made it safer than before and overall a better environment to be cared in. - I could go on a long time about all the bits we put in place initially and as we have gone on.
Why's it good for staff? Despite the near constant pressure staff now come to work in a positive frame of mind and are much happier hence our total turn around in vacancies and retention rates
Your team always enjoy themselves. Where does that special team spirit come from? The team spirit in incredible and based on us all being essential parts of the whole process where everyone's talents are appreciated and everyone has a voice and will be listened to. The team appreciate that those in charge have their backs and as long as people are working at 100% putting the patients first they will be included. The spirit has built and built over the project with everyone having a stake in how it has developed so we all feel as though we 'own it' and are proud of what we have achieved
Any advice for other teams? If I was going to offer advice for people contemplating change and taking a team with them, then it would be unless you make the team feel part of the process in developing solutions and not imposing them from 'on high' you will not succeed or at least you may make a change but not develop a team to run with it.
At the awards the common themes recognised across the shortlisted projects included innovation and technology, patient-centricity and collaboration.
The patient safety organisation of the year was Northumbria Healthcare Foundation Trust – an “outstanding” rated trust known for successfully focusing on quality improvement – for “prioritising patient safety and quality the Northumbria way”.
The patient safety team of the year was at Nottinghamshire Healthcare Foundation Trust – which runs the Rampton high security psychiatric hospital – for its entry: “Reducing restrictive practices and improving staff morale on a high security hospital intensive care ward for female patients.”
Here's a link to all the results on the night. Bradford won our category with a project called Sketchnotes and Pictorials in Healthcare.
https://awards.patientsafetycongress.co.uk/winners-2019.
HSJ Bureau Chief, Shaun Lintern, hailed all the finalists for raising the bar on safety.
“Each of the winners exemplify the best of the NHS; working to improve the safety of their services and to deliver higher quality of care to their patients. All finalist projects selected by our independent judges are making a real difference, representing the vanguard of efforts in all healthcare settings to continuously improve and seek better outcomes. It was a privilege to celebrate with the winners and I hope other organisations and teams can learn from their example as we raise the bar on safety.”
