A patient safety initiative established across Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland (LLR) has been shortlisted at this year’s HSJ Patient Safety Awards which recognise safety, culture and positive experience in patient care at a national level.
The LLR Integrated Care Board (LLR ICB) has been shortlisted in the category, Patient Safety Pilot Project of the Year, for their collaborative approach to managing risk and governance in urgent and emergency care.
Dr Caroline Trevithick, Chief Nursing Officer and Deputy Chief Executive of the LLR ICB, said: “Before we undertook this work, we had long patient waits for ambulances, incidents where patients were at risk due to ambulance handover delays at the hospital and poor staff experience in our ambulance trust and our Emergency Department.
“In the autumn of 2022, health and care partners from across LLR worked together to view our collective risk as a system in urgent and emergency care, in order to support sustained change. The focus was to move the system to identify actions that balanced risk across all our providers, with the aim of improving outcomes for our patients over the busy winter period.
“The results have been incredibly positive and we are so pleased that our work has been recognised nationally in terms of good practice and improvements to patient safety.”
Actions supported by the system in LLR to balance the risk across urgent and emergency care have resulted in a reduction in ambulance handover delays and improved response times in the community. Patients are assessed by multidisciplinary teams to keep them at home, where appropriate, with support from community staff, reducing the need for hospitalisation, and there has also been an improvement in the process of patients being discharged from hospital when they are medically fit to do so, with fewer waits for packages of care to be arranged.
Dr Nil Sanganee, Chief Medical Officer of the LLR ICB, said: “The success of our approach is due to this being undertaken collaboratively as a system, with health and social care organisations working closely together, through clinical leadership and oversight working, towards the aim of right place, right time, right clinician. Every part of the system developed their risk-based approach including primary care, social care colleagues and care homes, as well as our hospitals and ambulance service.
“This work has been championed by senior leaders in each of our partner organisations which has enabled us to ensure a focus on improving quality and safety and addressing the cultural changes required across our care and clinical professional groups.
“Within our sector the HSJ awards programme is a high profile and hugely respected platform to showcase the work and achievements of the many healthcare professionals who enter and I would like to thank all of our partners for their commitment in working so effectively together to achieve improvements for our patients.”
The HSJ Patient Safety Awards acknowledge the hard-working teams and individuals across the UK who are continually striving to deliver improved patient care. A record-breaking 515 entries were received for this year’s awards, with 209 organisations, projects and individuals making it to the final shortlist. The judging panel is made up of a diverse range of highly influential and respected figures within the healthcare community and the winners will be announced at the official awards ceremony to be held later this year in Manchester (September 18th).
HSJ editor Alastair McLellan, adds; “As always, it’s a pleasure at this stage of our lengthy judging process, to be able to offer my congratulations to the LLR Integrated Care Board as a finalist for this years’ HSJ Patient Safety Awards.
“Every one of the projects, Trusts, teams and individuals who entered this year have truly demonstrated their skills in setting – and delivering – the highest of standards in healthcare excellence, presenting our venerable panel of judges with some difficult decisions.
“I’m looking forward to welcoming our finalists to the awards ceremony in September, where we’ll have a fantastic opportunity to come together and celebrate some really impressive achievements, whilst sharing experiences, best practice and learning from our colleagues working in a diverse range of roles across the healthcare sector.”
The full list of finalists for the 2023 HSJ Patient Safety Awards can be found at: https://awards.patientsafetycongress.co.uk/shortlist-2023.
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