Analysis
Academic health science networks to lead patient-safety collaboratives Plans to make the NHS a body devoted to improvement and continual learning have been launched, writes Nick Lipley A NATIONAL programme to improve the safety of patients and ensure that continual learning ‘sits at the heart of health care’ in England has been launched. The programme, co-ordinated by NHS England and NHS Improving Quality (NHS IQ), is said to be the ‘largest and most comprehensive of its kind in the world’. As part of the £12 million-a-year, five-year programme, 15 patient safety ‘collaboratives’, each led by an academic health science network (AHSN), is being established. The collaboratives are expected to bring together patients, healthcare staff and other partners from across health and care economies to determine local patient-safety priorities and to develop and implement solutions to problems. Issues that collaboratives may tackle on a ‘whole-patient pathway’ basis could Getty
their review. These include calls to train managers in early conflict resolution, a mentoring network so that experienced managers can support managers new to their roles, and training for all employees on ‘basic principles of ill treatment and discrimination’. Their report also recommends the current health and wellbeing committee be reorganised to ensure representation from trade unions and employee-representative groups, and that the committee should be empowered to intervene when a department has above-average levels of absence, employee turnover and grievances. The report suggests that the investigators’ survey should be repeated in 2015 and 2016. Barts is promising to act on all ten recommendations, and has put aside ‘significant investment’ for a ‘range of activities to help staff work together differently and to help leaders and managers with what are very difficult jobs’. Each board member will participate in ‘Leading Changing Lives’ leadership workshops by the end of this month. A trust spokesperson said: ‘We knew this external review would be a difficult read, but our values include listening, and we welcome the clarity and depth of findings. The work to address all the findings has begun. We have already made some positive steps, and Barts Health has many fantastic services. We will build Barts Health to become a great place to work for all our employees.’ Charlene Walters, who represents employees including nurses on the trust’s staff-representative forum, said: ‘We are in full support of all recommendations in the review. More support and staff time release is required to assist the development of the new mediation service, tackling conflict at an early stage to prevent costly and harmful escalation.’ Christian Duffin is a freelance journalist
cover, for example, reducing infections, pressure ulcers, medication safety, falls and problems with patient transfers and discharge. The programme is born out of Don Berwick’s report last year on the safety of patients in England, which called for the NHS ‘to become, more than ever before, a system devoted to continual learning and improvement of patient care, top to bottom and end to end’. Invigorate NHS England director of patient safety Mike Durkin said: ‘The collaboratives will invigorate Professor Berwick’s vision of bringing people together at every level to accelerate safety improvements in every healthcare setting on both a local and national level.’ North West Coast AHSN chief executive Liz Mear said: ‘Leadership, culture and how we measure achievements will underpin the programme. Another important factor will be training and equipping our staff to maintain a continual focus on safety issues.’ The programme is aligned with and supports the government’s ‘Sign up to Safety’ campaign, which is aimed at making the NHS ‘the safest healthcare system in the world’ by creating the culture to support a system devoted to continuous learning and improvement. Launching the programme, health secretary Jeremy Hunt said: ‘We have focused unprecedented attention on improving patient safety in the NHS, but there’s always more to do and these collaboratives will help drive standards even higher. The collaboratives support our Sign up to Safety campaign, which sets out our ambition to halve avoidable harm over the next three years and save up to 6,000 lives.’ See also feature, pages 20-21
Find out more
Find out more
The independent review starts at page 167 of the report: tinyurl.com/ill-treatment
For further information, go to tinyurl.com/ improvement-programmes Staff will be involved in finding solutions to problems
NURSING MANAGEMENT
December 2014 | Volume 21 | Number 8
Downloaded from RCNi.com by ${individualUser.displayName} on Dec 04, 2015. For personal use only. No other uses without permission. Copyright © 2015 RCNi Ltd. All rights reserved.
9
Academic health science networks to lead patient-safety collaboratives Plans to make the NHS a body devoted to improvement and continual learning have been launched, writes Nick Lipley A NATIONAL programme to improve the safety of patients and ensure that continual learning ‘sits at the heart of health care’ in England has been launched. The programme, co-ordinated by NHS England and NHS Improving Quality (NHS IQ), is said to be the ‘largest and most comprehensive of its kind in the world’. As part of the £12 million-a-year, five-year programme, 15 patient safety ‘collaboratives’, each led by an academic health science network (AHSN), is being established. The collaboratives are expected to bring together patients, healthcare staff and other partners from across health and care economies to determine local patient-safety priorities and to develop and implement solutions to problems. Issues that collaboratives may tackle on a ‘whole-patient pathway’ basis could Getty
their review. These include calls to train managers in early conflict resolution, a mentoring network so that experienced managers can support managers new to their roles, and training for all employees on ‘basic principles of ill treatment and discrimination’. Their report also recommends the current health and wellbeing committee be reorganised to ensure representation from trade unions and employee-representative groups, and that the committee should be empowered to intervene when a department has above-average levels of absence, employee turnover and grievances. The report suggests that the investigators’ survey should be repeated in 2015 and 2016. Barts is promising to act on all ten recommendations, and has put aside ‘significant investment’ for a ‘range of activities to help staff work together differently and to help leaders and managers with what are very difficult jobs’. Each board member will participate in ‘Leading Changing Lives’ leadership workshops by the end of this month. A trust spokesperson said: ‘We knew this external review would be a difficult read, but our values include listening, and we welcome the clarity and depth of findings. The work to address all the findings has begun. We have already made some positive steps, and Barts Health has many fantastic services. We will build Barts Health to become a great place to work for all our employees.’ Charlene Walters, who represents employees including nurses on the trust’s staff-representative forum, said: ‘We are in full support of all recommendations in the review. More support and staff time release is required to assist the development of the new mediation service, tackling conflict at an early stage to prevent costly and harmful escalation.’ Christian Duffin is a freelance journalist
cover, for example, reducing infections, pressure ulcers, medication safety, falls and problems with patient transfers and discharge. The programme is born out of Don Berwick’s report last year on the safety of patients in England, which called for the NHS ‘to become, more than ever before, a system devoted to continual learning and improvement of patient care, top to bottom and end to end’. Invigorate NHS England director of patient safety Mike Durkin said: ‘The collaboratives will invigorate Professor Berwick’s vision of bringing people together at every level to accelerate safety improvements in every healthcare setting on both a local and national level.’ North West Coast AHSN chief executive Liz Mear said: ‘Leadership, culture and how we measure achievements will underpin the programme. Another important factor will be training and equipping our staff to maintain a continual focus on safety issues.’ The programme is aligned with and supports the government’s ‘Sign up to Safety’ campaign, which is aimed at making the NHS ‘the safest healthcare system in the world’ by creating the culture to support a system devoted to continuous learning and improvement. Launching the programme, health secretary Jeremy Hunt said: ‘We have focused unprecedented attention on improving patient safety in the NHS, but there’s always more to do and these collaboratives will help drive standards even higher. The collaboratives support our Sign up to Safety campaign, which sets out our ambition to halve avoidable harm over the next three years and save up to 6,000 lives.’ See also feature, pages 20-21
Find out more
Find out more
The independent review starts at page 167 of the report: tinyurl.com/ill-treatment
For further information, go to tinyurl.com/ improvement-programmes Staff will be involved in finding solutions to problems
NURSING MANAGEMENT
December 2014 | Volume 21 | Number 8
Downloaded from RCNi.com by ${individualUser.displayName} on Dec 04, 2015. For personal use only. No other uses without permission. Copyright © 2015 RCNi Ltd. All rights reserved.
9
