10 June 2015
UH Bristol’s planned care programme in the running for national award
University Hospitals Bristol's planned care programme has been
shortlisted for a prestigious Health Service Journal Value in
Healthcare Award.
The planned care programme, launched in October, is a new way of
working within the Trust's surgical division, which aims to enhance
care for patients coming in for emergency and planned
procedures.
It does this by improving the scheduling of operations and
planning of the use of available beds to ensure that patients are
admitted to the correct specialty ward, for both planned procedures
and emergency admissions.
Deborah Lee, deputy chief executive and chief operating officer
at UH Bristol said: "This work has been extremely important in
helping to improve patient care, which is always our primary goal.
It's also helped our hospitals to run more efficiently and
effectively. Staff from across the Trust have worked extremely hard
on it, and we know it's already had a big impact, so it's very
heartening that the programme has been shortlisted for this
award."
"Coming in for a planned operation and having your procedure
cancelled on the day because there isn't a bed available, affects
not just the patient but their family," said Andrew Hollowood, the
clinical chair for the Division of Surgery, Head and Neck and the
lead for the programme.
"This is the situation we've been working hard to avoid. Our
programme largely aims to prevent these cancellations to ensure we
offer the best care for our patients. We've been carefully planning
the numbers of elective surgery patients according to the type of
procedure they need, how long they are likely to stay in hospital
and when they are likely to be discharged. Elective operations
sometimes get cancelled because of a lack of beds for patients. But
thanks to our better planning, more hospital beds are becoming
available, which has significantly reduced the number of cancelled
planned operations."
As a result of the programme, the number of operations that
unfortunately needed to be cancelled due to a lack of ward beds
fell from 34 in April 2014 to just six in March 2015. Between
October 2014 and March 2015, an additional 12 patients per month
had their planned operation on the date promised - an increase of
3.4 per cent compared with the six months before the programme
began.
Andrew added: "We achieved these improvements despite
considerable pressures on the health system during the winter
months, which saw some hospitals in the South West forced to cancel
more than 30 per cent of their planned operations. We
understand that more work needs to be done but we are very pleased
with our progress so far."
By ensuring the right specialty beds are available for patients
through improved planning, the programme has also led to more
emergency patients being admitted to the correct ward. "As a result
of the programme, we have increased the number of emergency
orthopaedic patients being directly admitted to an orthopaedic ward
from 28 per cent before the programme began to 87 per cent by
December," said Andrew. "This means more patients are being cared
for in the right place by the right clinicians. This can help
reduce the amount of time a patient needs in hospital as well as
greatly enhancing their care."
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