Everything posted by Claire Cox
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What is civility?
Content ArticleIn this short video, Dr Michael Kaufmann discusses five fundamentals of civility and how to be civil in a healthcare workplace. Dr Michael Kaufmann is a Consultant in physician health and addiction medicine and Medical Director of the Physician Workplace Support Program (PWSP).
- COVID-19 risk assessments for BAME staff
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Patient safety concerns in COVID-19 related events (June 2020)
Content ArticleFollowing the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in Pennsylvania, facilities began submitting patient safety reports to the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Reporting System related to management of this emerging infection. Events in the analysis most often took place in the Emergency Department, on a Medical/Surgical Unit, or in the Intensive Care Unit. This is a study of 343 Event Reports From 71 Hospitals in Pennsylvania. The table within this document outlines the factors associated with patient safety concerns within COVID-19.
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Patient Experience and patient/public involvement in health and care services: Summer 2020
Content ArticleIn this issue of Patient Experience you can find topics discussed by the people who are living inside the health and care systems and are sharing their stories.
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Effectiveness of double checking to reduce medication administration errors: a systematic review (July 2020)
Content ArticleDouble checking medication administration in hospitals is often standard practice, particularly for high-risk drugs, yet its effectiveness in reducing medication administration errors (MAEs) and improving patient outcomes remains unclear. This systematic review of studies, published in BMJ Quality & Safety, evaluates evidence of the effectiveness of double checking to reduce MAEs.
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Sepsis: A decade of change (May 2020)
Content ArticleSepsis can develop rapidly and lead to serious illness and death. If the diagnosis is missed and treatment isn’t given swiftly, the consequences can be dramatic. About 48,000 patients lose their lives to sepsis in the UK every year. It is a national priority. The diagnostic and treatment guidance is fluid and responsive to changing best practice. This can cause issues with implementation of guidance and ensuring patients receive appropriate treatment. This Advancing Quality (AQ) report provides a summary of the progress that has been made in the North West of England over the last decade in the timely diagnosis and treatment of people with sepsis as well as improvement in outcomes. The report is also intended to outline the variation and shortfalls that still exist for patients with sepsis.
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Knock-on effects of coronavirus on access to healthcare: lived experience research (April 2020)
Content ArticleThe study by Traverse aimed to explore the knock-on effects of coronavirus for health and wellbeing in the UK by understanding the experiences of people whose care has been disrupted. It is based on interviews with 12 people in the week beginning 20th April, just after the second 3-week lockdown period was announced in the UK.
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Parents’ experiences of care following the loss of a baby at the margins between miscarriage, stillbirth and neonatal death: a UK qualitative study (February 2020)
Content ArticleWhen patients give feedback to healthcare providers, the topic of "communication" often features prominently. That is because when people are feeling vulnerable, the way they are spoken to, and the words that are used, matter a great deal. There can be few experiences that are more distressing than the death of a baby. So we need to think very carefully about how bereaved parents are spoken to. This paper looks at clinical terms such as "miscarriage", "stillbirth" and "neo-natal death" and finds that "These categorisations based on gestational age and signs of life may not align with the realities of parental experience". This study, published by the International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, explored the healthcare experiences of parents whose babies had died just before 24 weeks of gestation. Those interviewed "felt strongly that describing their loss as a "miscarriage" was inappropriate and did not adequately describe their lived experience".
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Prevention in the age of information: Public education for better health (June 2020)
Content Article"Over half of the disease burden in England is deemed preventable", says this report, "with one in five deaths attributed to causes that could have been avoided". It notes however, that progress has stalled on reducing the number of people with preventable illness and that compared to other high-income countries, we are underperforming. The authors call for a paradigm shift in prevention policy, from interventions that "blame and punish" to those that "empathise and assist". Regressive taxes and bans have not, they say, delivered the transformation required. Key to any new prevention strategy is the online information environment. Over 60% of British adults use the internet to check symptoms or self-diagnose, with the NHS website considered to be the most trustworthy. There is also, however, a "pernicious prevalence of false information". Polling shows that less than half of the population believe obesity is linked to cancer (misinformation), while over a third either agree that vaccinations can cause autism, or say they don't know (disinformation).
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SBAR handovers
Community PostAmazing thank you kirsty! Cake is always a good way of getting staff engaged ! Interesting you talk about a sticker you put in the notes? Do you have an electronic observation system? We have, this is about a year old for us. We are considering doing all the escalation documentation on there now, that way we can audit more easily. Great pictures too!!
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Everything keeps changing while the patients stay the same
B704b19148c107b25ea2f999dfc952c9not just patients with COVID..all of them. It all boils down to strong leadership in times of uncertainty
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Everything keeps changing while the patients stay the same
Content ArticlePatients remain the same, but the way that care is organised and delivered around us is changing. We are currently working in a state of flux. In her latest blog, Claire expresses concern around the lack of clarity and standardised updated guidance available for staff, which is leading to different interpretations of the rules and a lack of trust in our leaders, and highlights the impact this is having on staff and patient safety. She is calling for evidenced-based guidance, clarity, better communication and strong leadership to instill trust and the assurance that patient and staff safety is a core priority.
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Premature discharge from hospital (June 2020)
Content ArticleThis is a report of a qualitative survey that explored unsafe, premature discharge from hospital. The Patients Association has regularly heard from helpline callers that patients believed that they had been discharged too early from hospital,and that as a result they had either suffered harm or been at risk of harm.
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The Salford Medication Safety Dashboard (SMASH)
Content ArticleThe Salford Medication Safety Dashboard (SMASH) was successfully used in general practices with the help of on-site pharmacists. SMASH is a web application that flags up a list of patients who are potentially at risk from medicines they have been prescribed.
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Infographics for PPE
Community PostBarking,Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust has created a template for creating stickers to display name, role and photo over PPE. Roles are colour coordinated to aid recognition of different team members. This information is sourced by by the Speech & Language Therapy team at Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qQZd9aMXaCoFPaBa0R3WQhxUDe0vQhKL/view
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Restrictive Practice Guide
Content ArticleRestrictive interventions are deliberate acts on the part of other person(s) that restrict a patient’s movement, liberty and/or freedom to act independently in order to: 'Take immediate control of a dangerous situation where there is a real possibility of harm to the person or others if no action is undertaken, and end or reduce significantly the danger to the patient or others.' This guide, from the Advancing Quality Alliance (AQuA) has been developed to provide a brief overview of restrictive practice and the legislation that underpins it and outline ways to reduce its use during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.
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Psychological safety vlog (June 2020)
Content ArticleIn this vlog, Peter Ledwith, Safety Programme Manager reflects on the work that the Advancing Quality Alliance (AQuA) has carried out in direct response to the current and predicted conditions faced by frontline staff in health and care. Peter reflects on the Psychological Safety package that has been created in collaboration with Psychologica, which aims to develop psychologically safe environments to support effective staff wellbeing.
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IMPARTS: Resources and support for those with long term conditions or COVID-19
Content ArticleIMPARTS is an evidence based website with guides aimed at people with long term conditions (such as acute kidney injury, COPD and diabetes) and COVID-19. IMPARTS has put together a list of resources from condition-specific charities which they hope will help and provide reassurance during this time. This includes specific advice on the following: Coping with stress during COVID-19 (World Health Organisation) Sleep anxiety: tips to manage and improve sleep (The Sleep Council) Looking after your mental health during Coronavirus (The Mental Health Foundation) Coronavirus and your wellbeing (MIND) COVID recovery online course (Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust) Health unlocked – a holistic approach to healthcare OCD and COVID-19 survival tips (OCD UK).
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Experiences of COVID in a care homes: Glimpses of brilliance/PPE
Content ArticleThis short blog provides a ‘glimpse of brilliance’ video on donning and doffing of PPE – this includes some reflections on experience of a care home manager in Salford. This information is sourced from Safer Salford.
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Guide on stress and secondary trauma for managers
Content ArticleThis guide, published by the Advancing Quality Alliance, has been developed to help managers support their staff and themselves with managing stress. It also highlights the potential issue of secondary trauma and is an introduction to this subject and part of a phased package that will cover both the crisis and recovery phase in meeting wellbeing needs of the workforce.
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Whole system flow: From front door to front door
Content ArticleThe Whole System Flow programme has been accepted for presentation at the International Conference of Integrated Care in San Sebastien in April 2019. This poster provides an overview of the programme’s structure and outputs. We will be opening applications in April for the next group of systems to work with on a system pathway that they choose.
- Frontline insights during the pandemic: interview with an oral surgeon
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I can't stand up for falling down. A blog by David Gilbert, Patient Director.
Content ArticleIn this blog, published by In Health Associates, David Gilbert discusses some of the frustrations that he has with NHS Trusts who say they want patient involvement but pay lip service or who decline offers of help. This blog invites you to comment, to discuss and debate this issue. David Gilbert is a patient director at Sussex MSK Partnership. This is a new and pioneering role in the NHS. David has strategic leadership of how the Partnership relates with patients, carers and the communities they serve, including: learning from what people think of our services (patient experience) patients as partners in care decisions (Information, choice and shared-decision making) helping people look after themselves and care for their own condition (supported self-management) patients as partners for change (patient and public engagement; patient leadership).
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Emerging evidence on health inequalities and COVID-19: May 2020
Content ArticleA recent Health Foundation long read suggests that the COVID-19 pandemic could be a watershed moment in creating the social and political will to build a society that values everyone’s health – now and in the long term. The global pandemic and the wider governmental and societal response, is certainly bringing health inequalities into sharp focus. And it has been apparent from the early stages of the pandemic that some groups are at much higher risk of catching and dying from the virus than others. Factors such as age, gender, ethnicity and socioeconomic deprivation are all known to be important. Critically, these factors combine in complex ways to put some people at much greater risk. In addition, the measures taken to control the spread of the virus are having unequal socioeconomic impacts, which are likely to deepen health inequalities in the long term. Over the coming months, the Health Foundation will continue to round up key evidence on COVID-19 and inequalities. In this article the Health Foundation give an overview of some key themes emerging from recent work on the unequal impact of COVID-19, focusing on how children and young people are being affected, and the economic effects of the pandemic.
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Maintaining motivation in uncertain times (June 2020)
Content ArticleIn Maintaining motivation in uncertain times the King’s Fund advises leaders how they can best support their teams by offering structure and containment, protecting, encouraging, and creating opportunities.