Teams shortlisted for HSJ Patient Safety Awards

Posted by Devon Partnership Trust in #ProudofDPT, News on 30th June, 2021



Congratulations to three of our teams, who have been shortlisted in this year's HSJ Patient Safety Awards.

  • Mental Health Initiative of the Year: Connecting physical and mental health services in Gastroenterology - Devon Partnership NHS Trust and the Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Foundation Trust
  • Patient Safety Education and Training Award: Introducing Ligature Simulation to Devon Partnership NHS Trust, through a patient safety strategy
  • Service User Engagement and Co-Production Award: Devon Community Forensic Team - Cycling Group

The awards celebrate the teams at the frontline pushing the boundaries of patient safety and driving cultural change to minimise risk, enhance quality of care and ultimately save lives.

Project Lead for the shortlisted Mental Health Initiative of the Year, Dr Joanna Bromley, Consultant Liaison Psychiatrist and Clinical Director for Specialist Services, said: "The Gastroenterology Flow Coaching Academy Big Room project focused on providing dedicated support to help patients and acute staff understand the connection between mental and physical health and increase access to care needed to ensure patient safety and improve quality of life. The strength of the project has been the equal involvement of staff from both physical and mental health backgrounds which has reduced barriers between departments and ensured that new ways of working were integrated and co-produced. Gastroenterology patients who have received psychological intervention have seen several changes which contribute to their overall experience when dealing with their ongoing physical conditions.

"We have embedded mental health screening for new Gastroenterology referrals, supported consultants and IBD specialist nurses to feel confident to ask difficult questions, and developed a case for both CBT provision in the Gastroenterology outpatients and dedicated psychological therapy provision around complexity. Through this we have helped Gastroenterology patients have an improved holistic experience and outcomes when dealing with their ongoing physical symptoms."

Also shortlisted are the Community Forensic Team for the Service User Engagement and Co-Production Award. They have worked with ‘Ride On – Cycling for All’, to offer social inclusion and engagement through facilitating a weekly cycling group for the people who use their service.

Chloe Rosser, Senior Occupational Therapist, said: “We are delighted to have been shortlisted. There has been a collaborative effort and dedication of our staff members since the start of the project in October 2020 to successfully implement the cycling group during the Covid-19 pandemic.

"We are committed to develop our relationships with community organisations to improve the experience of the individuals accessing our service. We strive to offer opportunities to promote social inclusion and tailor interventions to positively influence health and wellbeing. This nomination has been fantastic way to demonstrate the great work that is taking place within our community services whilst supporting the recovery journey for our service users. It has been a great achievement and we hope to develop further opportunities in the future to continue to improve our services.”

Steve Haupt, Simulation Fellow, shared the team's pride at being shortlisted for the Patient Safety Education and Training Award for their introduction of Assessing and Managing Ligatures Training across all inpatient clinical facing roles in the Trust.

The course aims to increase knowledge and understanding around physical complications which can occur from ligatures. The course also contains two simulated activities with in-built debriefs where learners can put their newly found skills and knowledge into practice within a safe environment to increase confidence in assessing and managing ligatures.

Steve said: "The course so far has had an increased recommendation rate with increased post-learner satisfaction, as well as increased post-participant confidence in responding to ligatures, with improved awareness and knowledge in post-physical complications, which is now being demonstrated through data abstracted from post ligature incident documentation."

This year's Patient Safety Awards include 160 projects, teams and organisations on the shortlist and there is one additional round of judging to take place before the finalists are announced.

Good luck to all those shortlisted at the finalists' ceremony which will take place at Manchester Central on Monday 20 September, 2021.

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