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Showing results for tags 'Organisational Performance'.
Found 275 results
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Content ArticleThis study in the Journal of Patient Safety outlines the development of the Leapfrog composite patient safety score. The researchers aimed to develop a composite patient safety score that provides patients, healthcare providers and healthcare purchasers with a standardised method to evaluate patient safety in general acute care hospitals in the United States. The study concluded that the composite score reflects the best available evidence regarding a hospital’s efforts and outcomes in patient safety.
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Content ArticleDoes your manufacturing facility experience an undesirable frequency of costly product losses? Are recurring operational issues impacting productivity and morale? Do people believe the causes of these production issues are ‘human error’? Do Quality Differently will show you: How to take a systems-based risk management approach to create more operational success. Practical examples to guide improvement in your operations. Ways to apply comprehensive approaches that reveal and address the combination of factors that influence performance outcomes.
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News Article
Closing baby unit considered over safety concerns
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Health inspectors considered shutting down a maternity unit earlier this year over safety concerns. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) instead called for "immediate improvements" following a visit to the William Harvey hospital in Ashford, Kent. Helen Gittos, whose newborn daughter died in the care of the East Kent Hospitals Trust, said there were "fundamental" problems at the trust. The inspection of East Kent's William Harvey hospital laid bare multiple instances of inadequate practices at the unit, including staff failing to wash their hands after each patient, and life-saving equipment not being in the right place. Days after the visit, the watchdog raised safety concerns and threatened the trust with enforcement action to ensure patients are protected. Ms Gittos, whose baby Harriet was born at the East Kent trust's Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Hospital (QEQM) in 2014 and died eight days later, said: "When my daughter Harriet was born, the then head of midwifery was so concerned about safety that she thought that the William Harvey in particular should be closed down." She told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "Here we are, almost nine years later, in a similar kind of situation. What has been happening has not worked. "I keep being surprised at how possible it is to keep being shocked about all of this, but I am shocked, that under so much scrutiny, and with so much external help, it's still the case that so much is not right. "The problems that are revealed are so fundamental that we have to do things differently." Read full story Source: BBC News, 26 May 2023 -
News ArticlePregnant women and new mothers are facing wide variation in access to mental health support, new figures suggest, as NHS England admits national performance on a key long-term plan goal to expand services is ‘over a year behind trajectory’. Analysis of access rates for perinatal mental health services from NHS Digital shows the rates of women accessing support within the past 12 months range from 3.7 per cent in Humber and North Yorkshire to 15 per cent in Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin ICS. The long-term plan target is for 66,000 women per year to be accessing specialist perinatal services, which can help with conditions such as post-partum psychosis, by March 2024. NHSE admitted in its papers that “although access is increasing, performance remains over a year behind trajectory”. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 25 May 2023
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Content ArticleHospitals can significantly elevate patient satisfaction and enhance the delivery of healthcare services by incorporating best practices from adjacent and non-adjacent sectors. Chetan Trivedi explores several solutions, from multiple sectors, that can serve as a blueprint for hospitals across every key step of the patient journey, spanning from admission to discharge.
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News Article
'Multiple systemic failures' found at Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh A&E
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Patients spent up to 25 hours on trolleys in corridors waiting for treatment and in some cases were left lying on "urine-soaked sheets" and in another on a "blood-stained pillow for several hours" at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS) inspectors also raised concerns over fire safety in the overcrowded A&E after two visits to the hospital - the first of which was carried out between February 20 to 22 and a further unannounced follow-up in March. The watchdog found "multiple systemic failures" in a report published on Thursday but NHS Lothian said a major improvement drive was already underway. The health board added that the hospital was had just endured its busiest winter on record ahead of the inspections. At the time of the inspection, the emergency department was on some days operating at over three times its capacity. The report described this as unsafe and a "fire safety risk" with the evacuation plan in place at the time not reflecting the "significant" impact of overcrowding. Read full story Source: The Herald, 18 May 2023 -
News ArticleAn ‘outstanding’ trust’s Care Quality Commission rating has been dropped to ‘requires improvement’, after inspectors found potential safety risks and a disconnect between board and ward. A highly critical report on University Hospitals Sussex Foundation Trust also downgraded its well-led rating to “inadequate” and recommended the trust be placed in segment four – the bottom tier – of NHS England’s system oversight framework. Its main tertiary centre – the Royal Sussex County Hospital – was also rated “inadequate”, including for safety. Deanna Westwood, Care Quality Commission’s director of operations in the South, said “staff and patients were being let down by senior leaders, especially the board, who often appeared out of touch with what was happening on the wards and clinical areas and it was affecting people’s care and treatment”. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ,12 May 2023
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News Article
Regulator clears trust to bring back junior doctors
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Up to 10 junior doctor posts will be reinstated at a small district general hospital after regulators agreed it had improved its learning environment. In 2021, Health Education England removed 10 doctors from Weston Hospital over concerns they were being left without adequate supervision on understaffed wards. The unusual move prompted University Hospitals Bristol and Weston Foundation Trust to launch a “quality improvement approach” to improve its learner and clinical supervision environment. The regulator said the trust had made significant improvements that included: Better staff engagement with the trust leadership at all levels. Better clinical supervision, particularly around shift handovers and senior oversight of clinical decisions. Better learner experience in new training settings in rheumatology and intensive care medicine. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 10 May 2023 -
News ArticleMaternity services at a trust in Staffordshire have been rated as 'requires significant improvement' by the Care Quality Commission (CQC). University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust in Stoke-on-Trent must now make urgent changes by June 30th 2023, to ensure patients are cared for safely. It follows an inspection in March where inspectors said staff did not have enough effective systems in place to ensure patients were looked after to the standard they should be. Staff also failed to implement a prioritisation process to ensure delays in the induction of labour were monitored and effectively managed, according to the review of services. The CQC said midwives evaluating patients and handling triage processes did not effectively assess, document and respond to the ongoing risks associated with safety through triage. Read full story Source: ITV News, 28 April 2023
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News Article
Six systems pulled up by NHSE over poor cancer diagnosis performance
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
NHS England has demanded recovery plans from six systems with a poor record on delivering urgent cancer checks. NHS England has told the chief executives of the six integrated care boards they must “present and deliver a plan” to make more use of their diagnostic facilities for patients who need urgent cancer checks. The “facilities” referred to are all community diagnostic centres. The six were selected because they diagnosed or ruled out fewer than 70% of urgent cancer referrals within 28 days during February. This benchmark is known as the “faster diagnostic standard”. A letter to the chief executives said: “improving waiting times for patients referred for urgent suspected cancer will be a critical priority for the NHS over the coming year”. It adds: “it is essential… our national investments in diagnostic capacity are more clearly prioritised for patients being investigated for urgent suspected cancer”. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 28 April 2023 -
News Article
Forty trusts are set elective target less ambitious than last year
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
NHS trusts have been given targets to increase elective activity that range from 103% of pre-pandemic levels to nearly 130%, internal data seen by HSJ reveals. The wide gap between the targets, which are based on past performance and reflect the value of activity carried out, indicate the slow pace of recovery at many trusts last year. Forty trusts have been set the least ambitious target, to deliver 103% of pre-covid activity levels in 2023-24, including Leeds Teaching Hospitals, Barts Health, and University Hospitals Birmingham. All providers were supposed to deliver at least 104% of pre-covid activity last year, but few managed to achieve this, with emergency pressures, the impact of covid and flu, and workforce problems hampering efforts to ramp up activity. Amanda Pritchard has previously admitted the health service would have to “re-profile” the trajectory to achieving 130% of pre-covid activity levels by 2025. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 20 April 2023 -
Content ArticleHow can your team improve decision-making and performance in an unpredictable world? The field of Naturalistic Decision Making (NDM) supports organisations in understanding and leveraging expertise. Over the past 40 years, NDM researchers and practitioners have helped clients achieve higher ROI, improve safety, and increase efficiency. In this presentation series captured from our 2022 NDMA Open House, you'll hear directly from leaders in the NDM field. They'll share a variety of key concepts, case studies, tools, and insights that you can use to improve how your team makes decisions—especially when stakes are high and conditions are uncertain.
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News Article
NHS England should scrap many of its national targets, review says
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
The NHS should abolish many of its national targets while shifting its focus towards preventive healthcare, according to a review by a former Labour health secretary. The study by Patricia Hewitt, commissioned by the government said that, while targets can help concentrate the minds of those responsible for a service, having too many makes them less effective. It comes at a time when record numbers of people are on NHS waiting lists and as the health service in England continues to miss targets on A&E waits, the speed of ambulance responses, and cancer treatment times. The review sets out new targets and failing to provide adequate funding for new initiatives makes it far harder to plan new services and recruit staff. It adds that an excessive focus on hitting targets by managers can lead to “gaming” of the targets and a “disastrous neglect of patients themselves”. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 3 April 2023 -
News Article
Trusts given five years to achieve safe midwife staffing
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
NHS trusts have been given until 2027-28 to employ enough midwives to meet safe staffing requirements, NHS England’s new maternity delivery plan has said. The three-year delivery plan for maternity and neonatal services sets out to “make maternity and neonatal care safer, more personalised and more equitable for women, babies and families”. It says: “Trusts will meet establishment [requirements] set by midwifery staffing tools and achieve fill rates by 2027-28, with new tools to guide safe staffing for other professions from 2023-24.” The plan follows a series of high-profile maternity scandals in the NHS at Shrewsbury and Telford, East Kent, Morecambe Bay and an ongoing independent review by Donna Ockenden into Nottingham University Hospitals Trust. The Care Quality Commission has highlighted a string of other concerns across the NHS. Read full story Source: HSJ, 31 March 2023 -
Content ArticleWomen should be able to have confidence that they will receive safe, effective, compassionate maternity care that focuses on their individual needs. That is the experience of many people. But too many families still face care that puts the safety and wellbeing of women and babies at risk. This Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) report looks at themes from maternity complaints families have brought to us, to shine a light on their experiences and encourage others to let their voices be heard. It shares case summaries and guidance to help families complain and help NHS organisations understand the issues.
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News Article
CQC’s ICS ratings put on hold
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Plans for integrated care systems (ICSs) to be given Care Quality Commission (CQC) ratings are on hold, and no ratings will be issued until summer 2024 at the earliest, HSJ understands. The government had previously said ICSs would be given ratings – after pressure from Jeremy Hunt, then Commons health committee chair and now chancellor – and there was an expectation the process would begin next month. However, while legislation says the CQC will review and assess ICSs, it does not require it to give ratings. HSJ understands the Department of Health and Social Care supports the CQC beginning early work on assessing ICSs shortly, but does not plan to sign off on ratings being issued, nor set any date for that to happen. It means that, at the very earliest, more detailed reviews leading to ratings could happen from spring/summer 2024. One source with knowledge of the decision said there was not strong support for ratings work to start, and the CQC still needed to do a lot of work to adapt its approach to ICSs. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 27 March 2023 -
News Article
USA: 83 best hospitals for patient experience, safety
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Healthgrades recognised 864 US hospitals with its 2023 Patient Safety Excellence Awards and Outstanding Patient Experience Award. Only 83 of those hospitals received both awards. The dual recipients spanned 28 states. Texas had the most dual recipients with 12 honorees — including three Baylor Scott and White Health hospitals. Read full story Source; Becker's Hospital Review, 14 March 2023 -
News ArticleWhich trusts receive the highest recommendations from staff as a place to work? HSJ has analysed the full results of today’s 2022 NHS Staff Survey for general acute and acute/community trusts. HSJ has also analysed the results for mental health trusts and ambulance and community trusts. More than 630,000 staff responded to the NHS staff survey between September and December 2022 – a 46% response rate, down from 48% in 2021. Nationally, across all trust types, 57.4% said they would recommend their organisation as a place to work in 2022. That was down from 59.4% in 2021, and from 63.4% in 2019. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 9 March 2023
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News Article
NHS backlog progress at risk from junior doctors' strike in England
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Progress being made on tackling the hospital waiting backlog will be put at risk by next week's junior doctors' strike, NHS bosses are warning. NHS England medical director Prof Sir Stephen Powis said there had been huge achievements over the winter. But he said it was inevitable the 72-hour walkout in England, which starts on Monday, would have an impact. It comes as the annual NHS staff survey shows a falling number happy to recommend the care at their service. The poll found 63% would be happy to see a friend or relative treated - down by five percentage points in the past year and 11 over two years. Meanwhile, latest performance data shows NHS emergency services are continuing to miss their targets, although the situation is not getting worse. Dr Tim Cooksley, president of the Society for Acute Medicine, said despite the situation not getting worse it still presented a "damning" picture, and warned it was "increasingly causing harm to patients". Read full story Source: BBC News, 9 March 2023 -
News Article
‘We wouldn’t have sent Dad there’: CQC accused of failing to keep care homes safe
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
England’s care regulator has been accused of failing to keep private nursing home residents safe after a family alleged a delay in exposing serious risks led to a loved one’s painful premature death. Relatives of Bernard Chatting, 89, said they relied on a “good” rating from the Care Quality Commission when they moved him into a £1,200-a-week home in Dorset. But after he experienced care so unsafe he ended up in hospital and died a few weeks later, it emerged the CQC already knew the home was failing badly. The case comes as CQC’s traffic light ratings become increasingly important for people looking to place relatives in England’s 17,000 care homes amid a staffing and funding crisis which experts fear could increase the risk of maltreatment of the most vulnerable citizens. The ratings from inadequate to outstanding are one of the few ways that families can check care standards. “We wouldn’t have sent Dad there if we knew,” said Chatting’s son-in-law, Phil Davenport. “It is beyond my understanding how the CQC inspect, have serious concerns, and yet not advise the public more quickly. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 8 March 2023 -
News Article
Is Heatherwood Hospital a model for the future of the NHS?
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Pradeep Gill can see very little of the intense activity around him. He is leaning back in a reclining chair inside one of Heatherwood Hospital's operating theatres. Buzzing around him is the operating team, led by consultant orthopaedic surgeon Jeremy Granville-Chapman. For the surgeon and his team, this procedure is the very definition of routine. They have carried out more than 1,000 joint operations in the past 10 months. Heatherwood Hospital, part of the Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust, is a specialist elective hub where patients can come in for routine but life-changing surgery at a super-charged pace with theatres working at full tilt, six days a week. It is busy. But it is a good-busy, not the bad-busy we have come to associate with the NHS during this winter crisis. The site opened in March last year and Frimley's hospital executives are keen to stress the impact it has made. "As a specialist planned care facility, Heatherwood has been able to perform surgery six days a week with four out of its six state-of-the-art theatres dedicated to orthopaedic procedures," it said in a press release. "The hospital has also successfully reduced the length of time patients stay in hospital, with 40% of patients safely discharged within 24 hours." This is the practice the NHS wants to adopt as it battles a record seven-million-strong waiting list. Heatherwood can do that because the hospital is ring-fenced from acute pressures that affect other hospitals, as one its most senior orthopaedic surgeons, Mr Rakesh Kucheira, explained. "We have now realised that winter pressures are 12 months not just three months, which means the acute sites are not going to be able to do planned activity that they planned for, so we've got to create more space," he said. Read full story Source: Sky News, 9 March 2023 -
Content ArticleNHS England recently published its Delivery Plan for Recovering Urgent and Emergency Care Services, with goals and actions for the next two years. David Oliver, consultant in geriatrics and acute general medicine, gives his opinion on the plan.
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Content Article
Patient Experience Library: Patient surveys tracker
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Patient engagement
The Patient Experience Library's patient surveys tracker offers one-click access to the key patient experience datasets for every Trust in England. -
News ArticleThe CEO of a troubled trust has said evidence is emerging of ‘massively reduced’ length of stay in a new hospital criticised for being too small. Emergency staff have raised concerns about a lack of space and bed capacity at the new Royal Liverpool Hospital, which opened in October, as services have come under severe pressure this winter. The new building, on a next-door site to the old hospital, has fewer beds, although more have opened elsewhere in the city. In an interview with HSJ, Liverpool University Hospitals Foundation Trust chief executive officer James Sumner acknowledged aspects of the new building have created difficulties, including in relation to accident and emergency configuration and capacity, but added the move’s benefits are beginning to be seen. He said a new care model and single rooms throughout the whole hospital are helping to reduce length of stay, as well as eliminating bed closures due to infection outbreaks. He said: “We’ve got really good evidence of massively reduced length of stay in this new building, [with] about 70 fewer people every day waiting over seven, 14 and 21 days in hospital. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 1 February 2023
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News Article
NHS set to miss cancer backlog target three years running, NHSE plans reveal
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
NHS England has effectively admitted the backlog of cancer long-waiters will still be higher in March 2024 than before covid hit, in a document seen by HSJ. The consultation document, detailing trajectories for reducing numbers waiting 62 days or more from referral, shows the expected national total in March 2024 is 18,755. NHS England previously committed to reducing this to pre-pandemic levels (14,226) by March 2022, then delayed the target until March this year. There are now significant backlogs in diagnostics, with particular challenges in endoscopy and breast screening. NHS Providers director of policy and strategy Miriam Deakin said: “Cancer is a key priority for trusts. They understand the risk to patients who have to wait. “The pandemic left people waiting longer than NHS trusts wanted for diagnosis or to start treatment, with some people not coming forward, but now urgent referrals for suspected cancer are far higher than pre-pandemic. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 1 February 2023
