North Bristol Trust has seen 6 teams or individuals nominated for the NHS Parliamentary Awards, submitted by Darren Jones who is local MP for Southmead Hospital.
The awards, which had been delayed earlier in the year due to the pandemic, are a fantastic way for healthcare providers to engage with their local MPs and to share some of the exceptional practice, compassionate care, innovation and research which takes place throughout the year.
This year has seen an unprecedented set of challenges presented to those working in healthcare, and the nominations focus on some of the major changes which teams and individuals have made in order to cope with the pandemic and ensure that safe, high quality care for our patients is maintained at all times.
We are thrilled that Darren has chosen to recognise the hard work of our staff to keep our community safe, and after winning the Wellbeing at Work Award in 2019 we are hopeful that this year we can see similar success.
The first revealed nomination for Scott Grier, one of our ICU Consultants, can be read below. We will share further details of all nominees in the coming weeks.
The Excellence in Healthcare Award - Scott Grier (ICU Consultant)
Dr Grier has worked exceptionally hard over the last 6 months to set up and then deliver a working adult ICU transfer team for the region. Initially this service, hosted by NBT at the Nightingale Hospital Bristol, was set up to support the Nightingale hospital with movements into and out of the site in a safe and efficient manner. Crucially, through exceptional leadership, Dr Grier has developed a service that is scalable and agile enough to respond to patient demands within the context of COVID19 pandemic. The South West Critical Care Network (SWCCN) Transfer Team is a new novel service, truly multidisciplinary in nature and pulling in staff from around the region with their own unique skill sets and expertise. It is the embodiment of the critical care networks ethos of working together to improve patient care, safety and efficiency of service delivery. This service brings parity to neonatal and paediatric ICU service provision in that those areas of specialist work have had established retrieval and transfer teams for some considerable time.
This is novel and exciting work that has potential to improve patient safety during "high-risk" patient episodes of inter-hospital transfer of adult ICU patients around the region. The work Dr Grier has done in setting up this service will have a positive impact in for many critical care patients, including but not limited to those with heart disease, some cancers, had strokes, respiratory conditions etc.
The Future NHS Award - The Team behind the rapid deployment of CareFlow Connect & CareFlow Vitals (eObservations)
In Spring 2020, North Bristol NHS Trust (NBT) successfully rolled out two key patient-facing systems. Whilst part of NBT’s long-term digital transformation strategy, the following were fast-tracked over a short period of time in support of the trust’s Covid-19 response, working with our supplier (System C):
CareFlow Vitals (eObservations) provides an essential tool for identifying deteriorating conditions in adult patients, linking with National Early Warning Score (NEWS 2) scores. Alerts feed through to a care co-ordination app so, for example, all team members caring for a particular patient are working from the same information - irrespective of location.
CareFlow Connect - this app supports safer and faster team handovers by providing up-to-date accurate clinical information to multiple users, accesseible through a variety of devices.
By Summer 2020, the systems became integrated so that eObservations NEWS2 scores fed into CareFlow Connect giving staff a fuller picture of the patient.
Consistent with national and local strategy, both systems have replaced paper processes with 650 iPads distributed to enable working at bedside.
The success of these rapid rollouts can be accredited to;
Robust project governance and planning over the 12 months prior (including using the learnings of University Hospitals Bristol NHS Trust).
A strong working relationship between clinicians and NBT’s IT division.
Piloting CareFlow Connect the previous year which provided learnings that could be used come the point of mass deployment.
Staff engagement, demos and the creation of eObservations ‘super-users’ to aid training and local self-help.
The rapid deployment of CareFlow Connect and Vitals in extraordinary circumstances with minimal disruption – and arguably improvement - to patient care shows how digital change can happen quickly and successfully (as reflected by positive staff feedback).
This has also helped create a more digitally-aware organisation, creating positive foundations on which future technological change can happen.
The Excellence in Mental Health Care Award - Mental Health Liaison Team
The NBT Mental Health Liaison Team works at the interface of mental and physical health. It is a high quality nationally accredited service that meets the mental health needs of all patients in Southmead Hospital. We believe this team has a unique position in Bristol’s health community as it occupies and bridges both the acute and mental health trusts and provides truly integrated healthcare.
Prior to the onset of the pandemic, the Mental Health Liaison Team was already recognised as an increasingly invaluable resource. The impact of COVID-19 on the local community and organisation has only enhanced that opinion, with the service being an absolutely core component of the hospital along with allied medical and surgical services.
The coronavirus pandemic has had a monumental impact on the continuation of the safe delivery of healthcare services to the local population. This team, working with system partners, quickly and expertly created COVID-safe clinical pathways to ensure that urgent mental health care could still be provided to those who most needed it.
This team valiantly continued to be one of a few acute mental health teams in the region to remain fully operational and continue to see patients with acute mental health difficulties presenting to Southmead Hospital. As other essential community mental health services closed or drastically lessened their service in lockdown, this team ensured that it offered vital face to face assessments and human contact, whilst important to us all, so crucial to those with mental health difficulties in urgent need.
Holistic patient-centred care should be at the heart of all-healthcare. This team puts that into practice on a daily basis as it models a well-rounded, patient-centred approach that is high quality and individualistic. The fact that they did not falter in their duty during widespread change and disruption should be celebrated.