IOW NHS Trust has been shortlisted in two categories of this year’s HSJ Patient Safety Awards which recognise and reward the teams and individuals who strive to deliver improved patient care for their community.
The Trust has been recognised for its work to prevent patient falls and improve the care given to people who have a non-injury fall.
The first of the two shortlisted projects involved the introduction of a Falls Shared Governance Council (FSGC) at St Mary’s Hospital. This group brings together nurses, midwives and Allied Health Professionals with quality improvement leads, learning and development and staffing teams from across the Trust to understand the causes of falls and make changes to improve patient safety and reduce the risks of falls happening in the future.
Falls have been identified as one of the top ten most frequent incidents in hospital and is a priority for the Trust. In November 2022 the Shared Governance Council was set up to empower nurses to lead change to improve the outcomes and experiences for people, particularly those who are at increased risk of falling.
Laura Neal, Deputy Director of Nursing said: “We are pleased to say that we have already seen a reduction in the number of patient falls as a result of the work that is being done by the FSGC. Thanks to the way we have improved our use of data to identify trends, our teams are now better able to identify those patients who have a higher risk of falling as soon as they are admitted to hospital.
We also developed the way we carry our patient assessment on admission and how we are monitoring blood pressure levels to ensure there is no drop in blood pressure when people stand. Falls Champions are also being identified in each area to further improve patient safety.”
The second project to be recognised is an innovative pilot scheme geared at helping Islanders who suffer non-injury falls in their own home. Working in partnership, the Isle of Wight Council's Wightcare service and the Isle of Wight NHS Trust Ambulance Service has developed The Wightcare Community Falls Response which was launched in March 2023. The service is sent to 999 or 111 calls where a person who has had a fall has been clinically assessed as not requiring an emergency ambulance response. To date, 45 people have benefitted from the scheme.
The winners will be announced at an awards ceremony in Manchester on 18 September 2023.
