Kate Beaumont and Dagmar Luettel, from the NPSA’s Deterioration Team, enjoyed a visit to the Royal London Hospital, part of Barts and The London NHS Trust during Patient Safety Week.The Hospital is soon to be replaced by a brand new one, which staff are very much looking forward to!
The visit was arranged by Lynne Arrol, Clinical Risk Advisor, and included an informal meeting to talk about the initiatives the Patient Safety Team are engaged in to reduce harm from deterioration, as well as a chance to see some of the great work in action on the wards.
Earlier this month, Barts and The London achieved the top rating of Level 3 in the NHS Litigation Authority's risk management standards, demonstrating validated high levels of patient and staff safety across the organisation.
Staff have been making excellent improvements in the recognition and escalation of deterioration. Sometimes even though a patient is well monitored, getting the right level of care quickly enough can be difficult, especially when initial clinical interventions don’t work and senior input is needed rapidly. The Patient Safety Team has worked really hard to help ward teams ensure they get the right care at the right time, for every patient, every time.
The improvements the team has made include;
- a new trust wide observation chart, which prompts escalation through colour coding
- a new observations policy, with escalation protocol, which is audited every month by reviewing compliance with six random charts
- a multidisciplinary Management of the Acutely Ill Patients Group which meets regularly
- introduction of SBAR and SBAR stickers
- away days to learn lessons from SUIs
- a Patient Safety Forum, led by the Lead Nurse for Patient Safety engages with patient safety representatives from each ward
- a safety briefing each day, highlighting ‘the Big 4’, which are the key four patient safety issues decided by the ward each week.
When we visited two wards we saw some of the improvements in action and were impressed by the special Patient Safety Information Boards and the staff’s enthusiasm. We heard about a workshop recently held to help staff estimate fluid input and output and were very excited to see the ‘Keep it Fluid’ Patient Safety week audit tool in use on Phyllis Friend Ward.
Keep up the great work Barts and the London!