Patient safety collaboratives launched
Yesterday I was at the launch of a new national programme to improve the safety of patients and ensure continual learning sits at the heart of healthcare in England. The event marked the creation of a network of 15 Patient Safety Collaboratives (PSC), each mobilised and co-ordinated by an Academic Health Science Network (AHSN). They will focus on improving safety and empowering patients, carers and staff to highlight, challenge and implement local improvements in patient care.
Each PSC brings together patients, healthcare staff and other health and care partners to decide on its patient safety priorities and to develop and implement solutions. Some of the issues that the PSCs are tackling on a ‘whole patient pathway’ basis include pressure ulcers, medication errors, acute kidney injury, sepsis, falls, and issues with patient transfers and discharges.
The established network of AHSNs will support the PSCs and create opportunities for them to learn from each other. This will ensure the most effective and successful solutions are rapidly spread and adopted across England. Many AHSNs already collaborate on specific themes where there are shared issues or interests; I hope their support for the PSCs may well be the first of further national joined up approaches.
Commitment
The programme is born out of Professor Don Berwick’s report last year into the safety of patients in England. It also builds on learning from the Francis and Winterbourne View recommendations. The Berwick report, A Promise to Learn – a commitment to act, made a series of recommendations to improve patient safety; and called for the NHS “to become, more than ever before, a system devoted to continual learning and improvement of patient care, top to bottom and end to end.’’ Dr Mike Durkin, Director of Patient Safety at NHS England, describes the programme as ‘the biggest patient safety initiative in the history of the NHS’. He believes it will accelerate safety improvements in every healthcare setting on both a local and national level.
Consultation
The KSS PSC is currently consulting with stakeholders about its proposals for its governance, structure and priorities. The consultation closes on 17 October, so there’s still a couple of days to take part – you can find more information here. Local events are also planned for early in the new year to engage stakeholders and co-design plans. The KSS PSC has already signalled its intention to work closely with the South of England mental health collaborative which was established in 2011, HEKSS and the Leadership Academy.
Complementary
The PSCs complement and extend existing safety initiatives including the NHS Improvements Fellows programme which is appointing 5,000 fellows within five years who will be champions, experts, leaders and motivators in patient safety and will help the collaboratives devise and implement solutions. The PSCs also support NHS England’s Sign up to Safety campaign, which aims to halve avoidable harm over the next three years and save up to 6,000 lives. For more information about the campaign and to show your support and commitment to safety by signing up, click here.
Invitation to whole system modelling event
System Modelling is a powerful method for testing, understanding the implications of and building consensus around proposed service configurations and care pathway changes.
KSS AHSN is keen to promote the wider use of System Modelling and is holding a one-day event on 6 November 2014 at the Gatwick Holiday Inn. Key features include:
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Aims
- To demonstrate how System Modelling can be used to test and enable healthcare improvement
- To identify how System Modelling can improve services for older people in KSS
- To stimulate interest and connect users and suppliers with an interest in using System Modelling in KSS.
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Outcomes
- Connections made, knowledge exchanged, interest developed
- Users and suppliers with a better understanding of each other and the potential for System Modelling in improving services for older people in KSS
- Candidates identified for KSS AHSN joint project(s).
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Attendance
- Users: NHS, Public Health, Social Care and Local Authority staff involved in service improvement and commissioning.
- Suppliers: Industry, academics and NHS organisations experienced in providing System Modelling software and expertise.
There are slots for Case Study presentations and slots fordemonstrations. Please contact Gill Potts if you are currently active in modelling and are interested in presenting or demonstrating your work / product.
Attendance will be free to AHSN members and presenters and £75 per delegate for others. Please contact: janet.moore10@nhs.netto register and Gill Potts for further information.
Nomination time!
Nominations are now open for the Kent, Surrey and Sussex service improvement and innovation awards 2015.
These exciting new awards have been introduced to celebrate the clinical teams and local innovators who are leading the way in raising the bar for sustained improvements in patient care and driving economic growth.
Awards will be presented at the Kent Surrey Sussex Expo and Awards event on Tuesday 13th January 2015 at the Lancaster London Hotel, London.
For more information please visit our website.
Canterbury Christ Church University vacancy: Head of Research and Innovation
Canterbury Christ Church University
Reporting to the Dean of Faculty of Health and Wellbeing, the Head of Research and Innovation will provide inspirational leadership to support future success. The Faculty has just implemented a new School structure, creating this Faculty wide post as a result.
Following an impressive period of growth, Canterbury Christ Church University is today, a broad based University offering some 20,000 students a wide range of programmes focussing on health, education, business, arts and humanities and applied and social sciences.
To make an application for this post, please apply online setting out how you consider you match the requirements of the post in a covering letter and enclosing a full curriculum vitae.
For an informal discussion, please contact Debra Teasdale, Dean of Health and Wellbeing at dean.health@canterbury.ac.uk or 01227 782822.
HEE Call for Clinical Academic Programme Internships
Health Education Kent, Surrey and Sussex
Health Education Kent, Surrey Sussex has an objective to ‘support clinical academic careers for health professionals and also seek to increase numbers of staff across all clinical and public health professions with a proper understanding of research and its role in improving health outcomes, including an ability to participate in and utilise the results of research’.
A revised group of eligible professions are able to apply for the internship programme. Please view the list of eligible professionsto learn more. The deadline for applications is Monday, 27 October 2014.
Interested candidates should download the ICAP internship application templateand submit the completed template, a current Curriculum Vitae and a declaration of support from their current employer to Mrs Jayne Ingles at J.Ingles@brighton.ac.uk.