Pictured: Acute Care Team Members Jamie Swales and Sarah Boden support World Sepsis Day
Schools back and holidays over, and despite that “back to school and autumn’s coming” feeling, there’s certainly been some great news this week, and some really good progress being made in so many areas.
First of all, I was really pleased to see the publication of the results of the 2018 National Cancer Patient Experience Survey this week, as I saw that ELHT achieved some excellent results.
For example, ELHT’s results in the national survey showed that:
· 94% of patients felt they received all information they needed about any diagnostic tests they were undergoing.
· 87% of patients felt they were given their diagnosis with sensitivity when in outpatient clinics.
· 89% of in-patients felt they were given the right privacy when discussing their conditions or their treatments on the wards.
Considering how busy everyone is, and the pressure of work, it is heart-warming to see that clinical staff do still prioritise the most important and emotional aspects of the job - that human to human interaction that is at the heart of any healthcare professional’s job.
These are great results. We really want to build on this with our in-house learning opportunities. The End of Life team and Palliative Care consultants would like to enhance regular training packages for all staff. If you haven’t done so recently, I’d really recommend you go to The Learning Hub and sign up for the Care of the Dying module. All the latest guidance on communication, fluids, feeding, symptom control and so on. Chris Pearson (Director of Nursing) or Dr Anna McPherson, Palliative Care Consultant, will be happy to give details about updating your end of life training.
More good news from Chris this week too, this time about the Nursing Assessment and Performance Framework, or “NAPF assessments” that each ward and clinical area take part in. As of yesterday we don’t have any red wards or departments in the Trust. The last red ward became amber this week. Chris introduced the NAPF programme of ward improvement in ELHT just over four years ago. It’s great to see that it is now fully embedded and removed some of the variations of practice that hindered delivery of safe, personal and effective care. This doesn’t mean that there isn’t any more work to do, as there is still plenty to get all to green and SPEC status, but Chris assures me we can do this!
Great to see new management skills being developed in ELHT. This week I joined in the ‘Shadow’ Board meeting, and then two days later I joined the ‘real’ Trust Board meeting in public. Our Shadow Board has been a new initiative which allows a number of senior staff to sit in ‘practise’ roles as Board members by reading, discussing and presenting the actual Trust Board papers to each other and to me and the Chairman or Vice-Chairman of the Trust. It’s great training, giving a sense of what a Board actually does, and really useful for those who wish to progress to such roles in future. We have had three Shadow Board meetings in total now, and the richness of their discussions and the issues they raise always adds value to the actual Trust Board debate. We will soon be recruiting for the next cohort of colleagues to be given this opportunity, and so if you’re interested please be on the lookout for relevant details.
This Friday I’ve had the pleasure of attending the “ground-breaking” as they start digging the foundations for the new Acute Medical Unit near to A+E. Radio Lancashire has been following our plans closely, and they came early this morning for a live radio interview. We expect the unit will be opening by December 2020. And on my way back to Trust HQ I met members of our Acute Care Team (pictured) who, on World Sepsis Day, were busy educating patients and visitors about the seriousness of this potentially fatal infection. Watch this short film – it’s an ideal way to learn how to identify and treat sepsis.
More celebrations are taking place on the Ambulatory Emergency Care Unit at Royal Blackburn as the Unit celebrates its first birthday. Its 12 months since the Unit opened its doors for the first time and over 12,000 patients have benefitted from the hard work and skill of a hard-working team. Happy birthday, guys!
Exciting developments are also afoot within the Surgical and Anaesthetic Services (SAS) Division to create a new, fast flow 35-bed Emergency Surgical Unit (ESU) opening in January 2020. This will improve patient experience and flow. The ESU will operate as an emergency admission point for all specialities - as the Surgical Triage Unit (STU) does currently - and will also look after some post-operative patients who are staying up to four days. By reducing unnecessary ward moves it is anticipated that our patient’s will benefit from a shorter hospital stay. Establishing an ESU is the next stage of the Acute Surgical Pathway Redesign Project which began with the expansion and relocation of the Surgical Ambulatory Emergency Care Unit (SAECU).
Another really important meeting this week was the Staff Safety Group. We all know that ELHT staff are some of the most hard-working, dedicated people you will ever come across. And so it is deeply concerning that there have been incidents where members of staff have been subjected to unjustifiable abuse, both verbal and physical, which is completely unacceptable. The Task and Finish Group are working up final plans for launching our new campaign to raise awareness throughout the Trust that ‘Your safety matters’. This campaign is much more than posters on walls and staff notices. We are working, with support from the Lancashire Police, on strengthening our existing policies, developing new support pathways for staff, defining what is meant by zero tolerance, and rolling out specialist training. We recognise that some people will have a medical reason for behaving in an agitated manner, and staff are trained in dealing with this. But we know that there are unfortunately some people who simply feel they can take their frustrations out on our staff. This has to stop! Our new campaign will remind everyone that we will not tolerate unjustifiable behaviour, including any form of abuse, against staff. We will show our commitment to provide an environment that is safe and secure for our staff to work in. Over the next few weeks you will see lots more news and the launch of this campaign.
And finally,
Conjunctivitis.com – now that’s a site for sore eyes.
(thank you to Katrina in the ED rota office for that one… :)
Enjoy the weekend.