https://www.gosh.nhs.uk/news/gosh-shortlisted-healthcare-service-journal-patient-safety-awards/
GOSH Shortlisted for Healthcare Service Journal Patient Safety Awards
14 Aug 2020, 1:55 p.m.
GOSH has been shortlisted as a finalist in two categories in the 2020 Healthcare Service Journal (HSJ) Patient Safety Awards, recognising the hospital’s outstanding contribution to healthcare. The awards, which help inspire and drive improvements in culture and quality across the NHS, celebrate the teams and people putting safety first.
Quality Improvement Initiative of the Year
In the category of Quality Improvement Initiative of the Year, a project working on reducing laboratory sample rejections due to pre-analytical errors in a paediatric setting was shortlisted. The initiative was led by Christine Morris, Lead Laboratory Manager, supported by an MDT steering group and coached by Nuwanthi Yapa Mahathanthila, QuaIity Improvement Facilitator. For this category, judges were looking for teams that have applied a rigorous approach to identifying problems and an equally rigorous approach to solving them.
The project, which was started in late 2018 and was set to run until June 2020 counted a number of key successes and among them are: the multidisciplinary approach to achieving results, a reduction in blood culture transport time, and a reduction in the number of clotted samples per week. Since presenting the project European Federation of Laboratory Medicine- 5th conference on Pre-analytical phase in March 2019, the project has been published in the Biomedical Scientist Journal (November 2019) and has garnered the attention of other UK trusts who wish to learn from our findings.
Speaking about the award, Nuwanthi Yapa Mahathanthila said:
“Quality improvement has a fundamental role in improving all aspects of quality – including the safety, effectiveness and experience of care. Our team at GOSH is dedicated to sustaining the successes we’ve seen so far, and we’ve put structures in place to support continuous improvements – these include a permanent Lab QI lead to look at pre-analytical errors, and establishing a permanent committee to review pre-analytical errors chaired by the Head of Quality and Safety."
Perioperative and Surgical Care
In the Perioperative and Surgical Care category, the GOSH Safety Standards for Invasive Procedures Implementation group led by Mr Chris Jephson, Consultant ENT Surgeon, has been shortlisted for their work in targeting education for all staff involved in delivering invasive procedures. They produced an eLearning module entitled “The NatSSIPs 8” accessible via the GOSH Learning and Development (GOLD) site.
Producing the module was a real team effort and combines informative slides, narrated videos of the WHO surgical safety checklist being carried out and a short end-of-module assessment. It has been accessed by approximately 400 staff and the principle and content of the e-module has been shared across the University College London Partners (UCLP) Invasive Procedures Network and would be easily reproducible in any organisation.
Chris Jephson said:
"Our aim was to raise awareness of the NHS England ‘National Safety Standards for Invasive Procedures’ (NatSSIPs) whilst demonstrating the key steps to safe performance of invasive procedures.”
Ciara McMullin, Head of Nursing and Patient Experience for Operations and Images Directorate and a key member of the GOSH SIPPS implementation group said:
“We used examples from experiences we’ve had at GOSH to inform the module. These experiences and the learnings that came from them further underpinned and emphasised the importance of the safety checklist and how effective it can be when used correctly.”
A panel of experts from across the health sector shortlisted the GOSH projects based on their ambition, visionary spirit and their positive impact on patient and staff experiences within the health and social care sector.
The full list of nominees for the 2020 HSJ Patient Safety Awards can be found on https://awards.patientsafetycongress.co.uk/shortlist. Winners will be selected ahead of the ceremony, which will take place virtually as part of the Patient Safety Virtual Congress and Awards in November 2020.