Search the hub

This guidance recommends the following: Suspend initiation of new treatment cycles, including ovulation induction, intrauterine inseminations (IUIs), in vitro fertilisation (IVF) including retrievals and frozen embryo transfers, as well as non-urgent gamete cryopreservation. Strongly consider cancellation of all embryo transfers whether fresh or frozen. Continue to care for patients who are currently “in-cycle” or who require urgent stimulation and cryopreservation. Suspend elective surgeries and non-urgent diagnostic procedures. Minimise in-person interactions and increase utilisation of telehealth. Note: This guidance will be revisited periodically as the pandemic evolves, but no later than March 30, 2020, with the aim of resuming usual patient care as soon and as safely as possible.

The Primary Care Cancer Toolkit has been developed by the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) in collaboration with Cancer Research UK as part of our partnership to raise awareness and knowledge of the role of primary care in cancer control. It is designed for use by primary healthcare professionals in the UK. If you are accessing these resources from outside the UK, bear in mind that guidelines and systems may be different. Resources are split into professional and patient sections. Professional resources consist of guidelines, information and tools aimed at those working in primary healthcare. Those within the patient section are websites, information leaflets and other resources aimed at a public audience which a healthcare professional can signpost patients to during or post consultation.

This infographic sets out standardised, safe care of children and young people who are receiving or for consideration of receiving Heated humidified high flow therapy (HHHFT).

This study from Schultz et al., published in the The Canadian Journal of Hospital Pharmacy, clearly shows hat abbreviations currently used by manufacturers to differentiate short- and long-acting medications are problematic. Furthermore, it has highlighted the potential consequences of using non-intuitive abbreviations to differentiate medications with different release rates. The study demonstrates how evidence-based research at the local level, along with feedback and input from front-line staff, can be used to address longstanding problems. Although no strategy can eliminate all errors involving medications with different release rates, this study generated evidence-based solutions that were subsequently implemented to minimise potential errors through more intuitive labelling of medications. The findings from this evaluation are applicable to other organisations seeking to reduce the risk of errors related to medication abbreviations and should also be considered by pharmaceutical companies.

The focus of this CwPAMS project is antimicrobial stewardship, which aims to improve the use of antimicrobials using the expertise of pharmacists and so tackling antimicrobial resistance (AMR); a threat that the World Health Organization (WHO) states currently causes 700,000 deaths per year, which will increase to 10 million worldwide by 2050,[1] and could disrupt the cornerstones of current medicines, such as cancer management and joint replacements.[2] Zambia is lower-middle income country but has a very high burden of infectious diseases, including high morbidity and mortality rates from HIV, lower respiratory tract infections, malaria, diarrhoeal diseases and tuberculosis.[3],[4]University Teaching Hospital (UTH) has reported very high AMR rates to a variety of key antimicrobials and while they were aware of antimicrobial stewardship they didn’t proactively engage with it. WHO has developed an AMS framework with four key components: AMR awareness, appropriate use of antimicrobials, infection prevention and control, and surveillance. Using this framework, our small team from Brighton & Sussex University Trust, UTH and UNZA organised a stakeholders meeting and ‘train the trainers’ event to develop key interventions to improve antimicrobial stewardship at UTH. The three-day event was held in June 2019 in Lusaka and had excellent engagement from doctors, pharmacists and environmental health professionals from UTH plus representatives from Zambian Ministry of Health, THET, Hospital Pharmacist Association of Zambia, University of Zambia and Zambian Medicines Regulatory Authority. The three-day event was a hive of energy, highlighting the Zambian interest and commitment to AMS and improving outcomes for their people, from grass roots to ministerial level. The main outcomes from the event were: To conduct global point prevalence survey (GPPS) for antimicrobial surveillance. To develop and implement an antimicrobial specific drug chart which can improve prescribing practices. To implement a bare below the elbows (BBE) dress code change to improve infection prevention and control. To implement an infection prevention and control and antimicrobial stewardship training programme. To employ an antimicrobial specialist pharmacist to be the guardian of above outcomes. Data collection was a daunting task for our UTH colleagues, so while in Zambia we volunteered to help with data collection for the GPPS pilot. This was a huge success, highlighting how quick and simple the process could be plus the useful data outputs it enabled. From this, we were able to get first-hand experience in UTH, which was invaluable for future programme development; the hospital is huge and sprawling, with little or no access to computers. Six-bedded bays held 11-beds and outpatient pharmacy requests were often above 700 per day. BBE and infection prevention and control were not present, with staff having to wear long-sleeved white lab coats and hand sanitising stations being woefully lacking. Despite these conditions all staff were committed to patient care and safety, and their enthusiasm for improvement has led to speedy employment of an antimicrobial pharmacist at UTH plus development of UTH antimicrobial guidelines, both of which will improve antimicrobial usage. One of our first priorities has been infection prevention and control implementation by utilising neighbouring Ndola Teaching Hospital's experience to conduct more ‘train the trainers’ sessions on handwashing technique, alcohol gel production and use, and BBE requirements. Uniquely we have organised this at hospital level (rather than external workshops) as we have found a larger and more diverse cadre of hospital staff are then able to attend (including nurses, porters and cleaning staff) and minimises patient care disruption and enables a whole hospital approach plus doesn’t require unobtainable technology. These trainers will now disseminate this information among their colleagues and an audit of implementation and practice is planned. Our second drive is implementation of the antimicrobial drug chart with GPPS to determine if the additional chart is effective in improving antimicrobial use. All these initiatives require training to ensure staff are aware of the importance of the initiative and its intended outcomes. We are also now exploring ways to make antimicrobial stewardship training mandated during staff induction. Once this baseline knowledge is established, we can continue to develop more complex training to develop skills and knowledge further and support clinical excellence. We have overcome many challenges to produce these outputs. The distance, lack of conference calling ability and rolling electricity shortages could make communication difficult, but we have employed weekly Zoom calls plus Trello online storage, which require smartphones only, to overcome these issues and this has been very successful and kept us to deadlines. Additionally, we have aimed for the Brighton & Sussex University Trust role to be supportive rather than directive to ensure that projects are owned and used by UTH colleagues and so more sustainable. We have tried to ensure that all tools are culturally appropriate and so more likely to be engaged with, such as newly developed infection prevention and control posters that have UTH staff promoting the initiative. During the workshop we noted Zambian staff enjoyed learning through games and case studies and so (in collaboration with Focus games) we have developed a Sepsis; Zambia board game and are now developing case studies using the new UTH antimicrobial guidelines. A reciprocal visit for UTH staff to experience life in the NHS was also arranged; this has included attendance on ward rounds, shadowing of staff, education observations (in Trust and at local university) and the UKCPA conference. Our feedback sessions have highlighted that there are more commonalities between our hospitals than differences; while the diseases and drugs may be different we are all working in resource tight settings trying to do the best for our patients. A repeating feedback theme though was that there was a more cohesive multi-disciplinary approach to antimicrobial stewardship at Brighton & Sussex University Trust and UTH would like to emulate this; we hope this has been started by involving doctors in the visit, mentoring of antimicrobial stewardship pharmacist and inclusive antimicrobial stewardship / infection prevention and control training and chart development. Future suggestions included undergraduate MDT training and pharmacy induction for medics. As expected, this project has allowed me to fulfil humanitarian aspects that I wanted to achieve. Unexpectedly, I have also seen a development in my problem-solving skills, teaching methods (especially when there is scant technology available), negotiation and leadership skills, which I can then apply to my daily job back in the NHS. Importantly this opportunity has enabled me to really feel like I am given back to the (global) community and provide immense job satisfaction in an area of important global challenge; I encourage anyone with an interest to become involved. References: World Health Organisation. 2016. https://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/94/9/16-020916/en/ [Accessed 10/11/19]. World Health Organisation. Antimicrobial Resistance. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/antimicrobial-resistance [Accessed 10/11/19]. Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. GBD Compare. Zambia. https://vizhub.healthdata.org/gbd-compare/ [Accessed 10/11/19]. World Health Organisation. Zambia: WHO Statistical Profile. https://www.who.int/gho/countries/zmb.pdf [Accessed 10/11/19].

We have a new app within Homerton which is featured on the hub. The Homerton University Hospital (HUH) Action Card App is an initiative that aims to bridge the gap between information/processes with clinical members of staff without the need to log into a computer, access the intranet, and finding the long black and white document which is never ending. The Action Card App has easy to read, 1-page coloured documents relating to local and national/local incident trends and Never Events. We entered the Patient Safety Learning Awards on the back of seeing the hub and finding content on there that was incredibly useful on a day to day basis. We genuinely weren't expecting to hear anything back from the Patient Safety Learning team as we are a small trust that not a lot of people know about, and we thought the standard of patient safety initiatives would be high, with many trusts miles ahead of us. I have to say, the team at Patient Safety Learning were nothing but lovely, from the moment the conversation started about the prospect of entering the awards. They all took the time for correspondence and they treated you as a person, as oppose to an entry. When we got the information that we had won the overall prize, we were gobsmacked and elated. The app team were overjoyed with the sense that our hard work had paid off and someone had taken the time to appreciate the work we have been doing at Homerton. We were asked to prepare a presentation prior to the awards, which showcased our work and to share with the attendees of the conference. The day arrived, with so much great work, inspiring talks and a general atmosphere of wanting to do more to keep our patients safe. I would like to thank everyone who heard our presentation (some may say performance) and thank everyone in the Patient Safety Learning team for their help with this process.