Challenges with improving patient safety at a big trust / community as oppose to smaller trusts

[Luke Brown]

I have been thinking recently about the challenges which is posed towards larger trusts with regards to patient safety. Particularly with getting information disseminated to all staff and being reliant on endless emails. I have recently done some work with our Action Card App which has posed its own challenges particularly with physically getting around the Departments, spreading the word, and assisting people on the app itself. What really helped us iare screen savers, twitter and having those key conversations with stakeholders within the trust. I was wondering what everyone elses perspectives were?

[Claire Cox]

@Evelyn Prodger would you have any insights from working in a smaller organisation, like the Hopsice?

[Luke Brown]

I have worked in a large trust in London, but was very junior and didn’t appreciate the enormity of the trust from a management and patient safety perspective. Incredibly, there are further complications for trusts with Community Teams. Very complicated processes, be great if anyone has got any insight into this? 

[Evelyn Prodger]

It is really tricky in organisations of different sizes and with different geography.

Small organisations have fewer people to draw on and often fewer incidents so identifying trends or forming a working group with a new perspective can be a challenge but you can have great conversations because everyone is based together.

Community Trusts have different challenges. They are likely to have more disparate teams on stand alone sites across large geography making coming together difficult. They may work in different systems i.e. Community Hospitals may be linked to different acutes for microbiology so different reporting systems and different antibiotic prescribing protocols. The meeting structure can be very hierarchical as a way of managing workloads but this can make the decision making remote form the frontline. They do however, by their nature, have a more diverse workforce which opens up more lateral problem solving if harnessed correctly.

I am not convinced it is more or less difficult in any area, the challenges (but also the options to be creative) are just different.

I think there is something about honest conversations and reducing organisational fear about looking outward. Make it okay for me to talk to a Community Trust in the North about where I am with falls and share solutions. Use technology sensibly to enable conversation (video conferencing not conference calling). Above all the people with the greatest insights into what we could do better are our frontline staff, patients and carers and they are right there where the care is being delivered.

I joined a webinar today about clinician burnout and one of the discussions resonated for patient safety. They talked about "silly rules" and how they govern behaviour. If clinicians in whatever setting could have the courage to say this rule is negatively impacting on patient safety (e.g. say pedal bins with lids are required in toilets but patients are falling over trying to balance to open them) then there can be a open debate about the greater risk.

 

Not sure any of this helps @Claire Cox but happy to discuss further.

[PatientSafetyLearning Team]

If anyone else is interested, the webinar that @Evelyn Prodger mentioned on clinical burnout can be accessed retrospectively. Just register via the link on our events calendar. 

[Luke Brown]

On ‎08‎/‎11‎/‎2019 at 14:27, Evelyn Prodger said:

It is really tricky in organisations of different sizes and with different geography.

Small organisations have fewer people to draw on and often fewer incidents so identifying trends or forming a working group with a new perspective can be a challenge but you can have great conversations because everyone is based together.

Community Trusts have different challenges. They are likely to have more disparate teams on stand alone sites across large geography making coming together difficult. They may work in different systems i.e. Community Hospitals may be linked to different acutes for microbiology so different reporting systems and different antibiotic prescribing protocols. The meeting structure can be very hierarchical as a way of managing workloads but this can make the decision making remote form the frontline. They do however, by their nature, have a more diverse workforce which opens up more lateral problem solving if harnessed correctly.

I am not convinced it is more or less difficult in any area, the challenges (but also the options to be creative) are just different.

I think there is something about honest conversations and reducing organisational fear about looking outward. Make it okay for me to talk to a Community Trust in the North about where I am with falls and share solutions. Use technology sensibly to enable conversation (video conferencing not conference calling). Above all the people with the greatest insights into what we could do better are our frontline staff, patients and carers and they are right there where the care is being delivered.

I joined a webinar today about clinician burnout and one of the discussions resonated for patient safety. They talked about "silly rules" and how they govern behaviour. If clinicians in whatever setting could have the courage to say this rule is negatively impacting on patient safety (e.g. say pedal bins with lids are required in toilets but patients are falling over trying to balance to open them) then there can be a open debate about the greater risk.

 

Not sure any of this helps @Claire Cox but happy to discuss further.

 

Wonderful insight, thank you @Evelyn Prodger, its very easy to get "trapped in a bubble" and not sure about how ither trusts work, particularly as i have expeirence in both, but really flourished in a smaller hospital. As i stated prior, i was very junior in my previous trust and lacked experience. 

Thank you