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A team of ward nurses from Merseyside took part in the 2018–19 cohort of the Innovation Agency's coaching for culture programme. The team, led by ward manager Sharon Mcloughlin, were all from the Dott Ward at The Walton Centre NHS Foundation Trust, a specialist trust in north Liverpool dedicated to providing comprehensive neurology, neurosurgery, spinal and pain management services. What we did Sharon Mcloughlin, Ward Manager, Dott Ward: "The Innovation Agency gave us the dialogue to engage with staff and address concerns objectively, without staff taking anything personally. I was able to say this is an outside organisation, and with them we’re going to look at how our team could improve." “It’s been about empowering staff, and staff realising that change has to come from all of us. I’ve gained skills to help staff feel more empowered and get on board, and see it as their responsibility to improve things too." “Hopefully as a result we’ve improved safety for patients as well. I’m more confident now that I know everybody on the team knows which patients need turning, which patients are at risk of a fall, which patients are suffering from an infection – and if staff don’t know, they need to take some accountability for that now.” Kate Wallworth, Sister, Dott Ward: "After the Coaching Academy we've now got a structure in place – we’re organised, very organised. We introduced our Safety Huddle where all staff come in and listen while we run through all the main points on the ward. That’s before every shift. Going forward everyone is aware of what’s happening on the ward that day. If a visitor comes onto the ward, any member of staff would be able to answer their questions. We all know which patients are suffering from an infection, which patients are going into theatre. It just helps the running of the ward. It’s a more pleasant ward to work on.” Lisa Clark, Sister, Dott Ward: "We had to try and figure out a way to measure if teamwork was improving or not. We introduced a simple box where staff can post a smiley face or an unhappy face, or a comment card – it was just trying to make it as easy as possible. At the beginning we’d see a lot of sad faces going into the box and not many suggestions." “Now it takes me longer to type up because there’s so many suggestions. People mention staff who’ve really put themselves out to help out, just to say thank you. You can see a lot more positive feedback, and everyone who sees their name on the board gets a positive feeling." “I don’t think people realise how powerful and uplifting it is to hear how to be positive – that there is a way to think positively, and there are solutions to problems. That’s something we’ve tried here with the team – if things aren’t going in the right direction, why don’t you think of an idea? How could you fix it yourself?” The Coaching Academy The Innovation Agency’s Coaching Academy is a programme that enables health and care professionals to improve culture, quality and safety of health and care through structured, focused interactions. Coaching for a safe and continuously improving workplace culture is a one-year programme for clinical teams focused on developing safe, high-quality and compassionate services. The programme includes accredited coaching training for team leaders; a collaborative action learning programme with other teams, creating a community of practice; an accredited team culture diagnostic to identify key areas of focus; and quality improvement and innovation practical knowledge and skills.

Pharmacies in Cheshire and Merseyside are being notified by their local hospital when a patient is discharged who might need help with their medication. The initiative, called Transfer of Care Around Medicines, is improving patient safety and quality of care – and saved the NHS in Cheshire and Merseyside an estimated £9.5 million over the three years to Spring 2019. The challenge Some patients leaving hospital need advice and support to help them take their medicines correctly and safely. Around 60 per cent of patients have three or more changes made to their medicines during their stay in hospital, and only 10 per cent of older patients are discharged with the same medication they were taking before they went into hospital. In some cases, errors or unintentional changes to a patient’s medication can occur because of miscommunication. This can lead to patients becoming unwell and being readmitted to hospital, causing unnecessary distress to the patient and placing an avoidable burden on NHS resources. It is estimated that 6.5 per cent of emergency admissions are a result of adverse drug reactions, of which it is estimated that 72 per cent are avoidable. Actions taken In 2016, NHS England in Cheshire and Merseyside, in partnership with the Innovation Agency, received funding from NHS England to support the implementation of systems enabling the transfer of care from hospitals to community pharmacies. Soon afterwards, the initiative was adopted nationally by all Academic Health Science Networks and is one of the AHSN Network’s key innovation programmes. A secure digital system enables a hospital’s pharmacy team to inform the patient’s local pharmacy of the patient’s medicines on discharge, so the pharmacist can follow up with advice and services. Impacts Of all referrals from hospitals to community pharmacies through Transfer of Care Around Medicines, around 40 per cent require follow-up action from the pharmacist. It is estimated that for every 10 completed referrals, eight avoidable bed days are saved for the NHS. As of March 2019, Transfer of Care Around Medicines in Cheshire and Merseyside has been implemented in 10 trusts, including 11 hospitals, two mental health trusts and all 635 community pharmacies in the region – the fastest adoption and widest spread of the initiative in any region in England. There have been 14,853 referrals to community pharmacists at March 2019, of which 6,224 have been completed with further actions from the pharmacist, resulting in calculated savings of 5,103 bed days, or £9.5 million, to the NHS as well as improved patient safety and quality of care. Testimonial Una Harding, pharmacist at Day Lewis Pharmacy in Aintree, said: “We now get notifications on our system on a daily basis, it’s a platform we use every day. New discharges or referrals are the first thing you see when you log on. If we see a patient has recently been in hospital we can make a note to speak to them about their medication when they next come in." "Patients now understand we can deliver more for them. There’s a culture now where people are realising that their GP doesn’t always have to be the first port of call. They know now that if they come into the pharmacy we can talk to them about the changes to their medication." "It’s fabulous. Finally we’re getting more information so we can make more clinical decisions without having to hunt for information from different sources.” Hassan Argomandkhah, Chair of Pharmacy Local Professional Network NHS England Cheshire and Merseyside, said: “What started as an idea – we’ve managed to achieve it, and even if we’ve made just one small change in the quality of life of one patient in the past two years it’s been well worth it. None of this would have happened without the dedication of the pharmacists and their teams – whether in NHS England, in the community pharmacies, or in the hospital pharmacy teams – and all the other ancillary staff surrounding them. Without that support and encouragement we wouldn’t have achieved this.”