World Patient Safety Day at OUH
17/09/2020
This article is more than three years old.
Professor Meghana Pandit (Chief Medical Officer) and Sam Foster (Chief Nursing Officer) have sent a personal message to all OUH staff today (Thursday 17 September 2020) to mark the World Health Organization's dedicated World Patient Safety Day.
In May 2019, all 194 WHO member states endorsed the establishment of World Patient Safety Day in recognition of the fact that patient safety is a global health priority.
In their message to staff, Meghana and Sam said: "Patient safety is one of the three key domains of our OUH Quality Strategy and patient safety is also a cornerstone of our Quality Priorities.
"Patients, Foundation Trust governors and members, and a wide range of staff took part in a Quality Conversation event in January 2020 to help choose our Quality Priorities for 2020-21. It is so valuable to get the input of patients and staff into our Quality Priorities - their perspective ensures we focus on what really matters to the communities which we serve."
Our Quality Priorities for 2020-21 are:
Patient Safety
- Implement the National Early Warning Score (NEWS2) to improve the earlier identification of deteriorating patients
- Run Safety Huddles across the Trust
- Take action to reduce insulin errors
Clinical Effectiveness
- Minimise the occurrence of Nosocomial COVID-19 in the Trust
- Provide an effective, safe and healthy working environment to promote staff wellbeing
- Improve the mental healthcare of patients in the whole Trust
Patient Experience
- Support patients to return to independent living after their discharge home, through our Home Assessment Reablement Team (HART)
- Reduce the number of patients with an extended length of stay
- Understand the impact of cancelled admissions and procedures on patients and their families
In their message to staff, Meghana and Sam also said: "We would like to take this opportunity to remind you of the importance of Safety Huddles - one of our key patient safety related Quality Priorities for 2020-21. Please do take a few minutes to watch the video which we made earlier this year outlining how Safety Huddles work."
Safety Huddles are an opportunity for staff - both clinical and non-clinical - to come together for a structured conversation based around four simple questions:
- What went well yesterday?
- What didn't go so well?
- What can we learn from this and do differently today?
- What risks are there for today that need mitigation?