Overview
The Health Foundation has established partnerships with three strategic health authorities (SHAs) to support the development of their patient safety infrastructure; to further test different programmes; and to achieve greater understanding of context and the scope of measures that are useful in spreading safety improvement across a SHA region.
What are we doing?
The Health Foundation’s investment to date has contributed towards the following:
NHS South Central
The programme provides the tools and training to enable primary care trusts to deliver patient safety improvements in many GP practices, community hospitals and community nursing teams across NHS South Central.
NHS South West
- ‘Readiness reviews’ to assess current approaches to patient safety across all provider organisations in the region.
- Delivery of a region-wide improvement collaborative to build local capability.
NHS North West
We are supporting NHS North West to further develop the safety improvement infrastructure within the region.
NHS North East
We are supporting NHS North East to accelerate the delivery of the Safer Care North East patient safety.. To make measurable patient safety improvements in areas such as managing deteriorating patients, safer surgery, medication safety and reducing hospital mortality.
NHS South Central: Improving patient safety in the community
Our work to improve the safety of community care in NHS South Central aims to transfer learning from the Health Foundation’s Safer Patients Initiative.
What does the programme involve?
The programme provides the tools and training to enable primary care trusts to deliver patient safety improvements in many GP practices, community hospitals and community nursing teams across NHS South Central.
The programme is transferring learning from the Safer Patients Initiative to community services by:
- demonstrating patient safety leadership and a safety culture
- promoting and demonstrating patient and carer empowerment
- improving the process of transfer of care
- ensuring that basic patient care needs are met
- demonstrating robust and effective processes for medicines, medical devices and equipment management.
An expert reference panel has identified change principles, change ideas and collaborative measures for the programme.
Improvement teams from across the SHA are participating in a series of learning workshops and are receiving project management training. Between each workshop the teams will apply the learning, rapidly testing the changes they make and sharing their learning with their colleagues through action learning sets.
Baseline data is being collected by the participating teams who report monthly on agreed global measures and measures specific to chosen topic areas.
The support provided by the Health Foundation
The Health Foundation is supporting the setting up and running of the programme, enabling access to specialist improvement knowledge as well as building project management and quality improvement capability.
NHS South West: improving quality and patient safety of acute services across the region
This programme supports NHS South West to transform health services in the region by building capacity and implementing measureable improvements in the overall safety of care in the participating hospitals.
Every acute trust in the region is involved in this programme, which is supported by the Foundation from May 2009 until September 2010. Technical support is provided by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement.
What does the programme involve?
The programme aims to:
- build a wider base of hospitals that can demonstrate improved patient safety through reliable execution of evidence based practice
- build models of improvement within each hospital
- establish a strategy for spreading improvement within the participating hospitals
- create the ability to share learning on a regional and national basis within the UK.
A programme of work has been developed to assist acute trusts in improving patient safety in a variety of clinical areas. This involves:
- an in-depth assessment of current approaches to patient safety for every provider organisation, that has resulted in a thorough and insightful picture of the safety capability across the region
- the introduction of a measurement system across the SHA
- the introduction of a series of interventions tested in the Safer Patients Initiative.
The support provided by the Health Foundation:
The Foundation is supporting the five year programme for its start up period from May 2009 until September 2010. This includes providing IHI technical support and supporting:
- ‘readiness reviews’ to assess current approaches to patient safety across all provider organisations in the region.
- delivery of a region-wide improvement collaborative to build local capability.
NHS North West: developing safety networks across the region
We are supporting NHS North West to further develop the safety improvement infrastructure within the region.
What does the programme involve?
The programme is centred on the creation of a working community of teams aiming to improve the safety and reliability of specific care processes.
The programme is being coordinated by the Improvement Alliance and began in September 2009, ending in March 2011.
The participating organisations and the care processes they are focusing on are:
- North Lancashire PCT is working on venous thromboembolism (VTE) in collaboration with Pennine Acute Hospitals, East Lancashire PCT, Countess of Chester Hospital, Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust, University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay and Blackpool, Fylde and Wyre Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
- Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust is working on pressure ulcers in collaboration with Manchester PCT, Salford PCT, Pennine Acute Hospitals, Stockport NHS Foundation Trust, Swinton Hall Nursing Home and Blackpool, Fylde and Wyre Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
- The Walton Centre is working to improve the pathway of the deteriorating neurological patient in collaboration with Aintree University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust, and Southport and Ormskirk Hospital NHS Trust.
NHS North East: supporting the ‘Safer Care North East’ strategy
We are supporting NHS North East to accelerate the delivery of measurable patient safety improvements in areas such as managing deteriorating patients, safer surgery, medication safety and reducing hospital mortality.
What does the programme involve?
The programme involves:
- facilitating clinical engagement in patient safety improvement and working to strengthen the patient safety culture
- promoting a whole systems approach to patient safety, working to involve provider and commissioning organisations in partnership
- maximising opportunities for learning, and disseminating that learning, both across the region and nationally.
The support provided by the Health Foundation:
We are enabling the SHA to set up four local development hubs that are supporting the uptake of national and local learning, and the consistent measurement of improvements in patient safety. The work is supported from January 2010 to December 2011.