Latest news
Patient, Service User and Carer funded places available for IHI/BMJ Forum
Dear Colleague
Re: Three funded places for Patient, Client or Carers to attend the IHI/BMJ International Forum on Quality and Safety in Healthcare, Glasgow 28 and 29 March 2019.
I would be grateful if can circulate this new opportunity for Patients, Clients or Carers widely to your network. The two relevant documents are below and please note the closing date is Friday 8 February at 4pm.
Funding Application Form - Glasgow Forum - v2.docx
Patient and client invite letter.docx
Scottish Quality and Safety Fellowship
This year celebrates 10 years of the Scottish Quality and Safety Fellowship. The Fellowship supports healthcare staff to learn about leadership and how to improve the delivery of safe patient care.
This year’s annual networking event, Thinking Differently, Inspiring Excellence was held in Edinburgh and attended by over 100 current and previous SQSF Fellows and Health and Social Care leaders from the UK, Ireland and Scandinavia.
Congratulations to all Safety Forum Award winners of 2017
Four teams from across HSC were presented with their awards at a Safety Forum Quality Improvement event at the end of March.
The annual awards are set up to recognise and showcase the excellent work undertaken across the HSC system to drive improvement in quality of care and strengthen patient safety.
There are 4 category Awards linked to projects advancing safety/quality improvement in:
- Partnership working/Co-production
- Innovation/transformation in Care
- Integrated Care
- Building reliable care
and from the 4 categories, one overall winner is chosen
The winners covered a great breadth of subjects, showed clear evidence of teamwork and tangible improvements to care.
The winners were:
Overall winner (and Innovation in Care Award Category)
Richard Earney and Lisa Cozzo, SET who achieved >90% NEWS compliance from at 30% baseline and 55% increase in referrals to the Critical Care Outreach Team
Building Reliable Care Category
Trish McKinney, BHSCT who demonstrated >90% of samples that were sent to the blood bank had H&SC identifier recorded; this from a 20% baseline
Integrated Care Category
Linda Millar and Margaret Diamond, NHSCT, who reduced length of stay post mastectomy from an average of 2.5 days to 1.9 days with women reporting benefits of getting home on Day 2 rather than Day 3
Partnership and Co-Production
Francess Doherty, BHSCT, ensured, through co-production, that over 90% young people receiving mental health services have a safety plan completed.
Scottish Quality and Safety Fellowship
This year celebrates 10 years of the Scottish Quality & Safety Fellowship. The Fellowship supports healthcare staff to learn about leadership and how to improve the delivery of safe patient care.
This year’s annual networking event, Thinking Differently, Inspiring Excellence was held in Edinburgh and attended by over 100 current and previous SQSF Fellows and Health and Social Care leaders from the UK, Ireland and Scandinavia.
SQSF 10th Anniversary Networking Event Exec Summary.pdf
Northern Ireland Emergency Nurses Attend 1st Global Conference on Emergency Nursing and Trauma Care Sponsored by HSC Safety Forum
The first ever global conference on emergency nursing and trauma care was held in Dublin from 18th – 20th September. This truly international gathering drew over 300 participants from across the globe including Australia, North America, Canada, South Africa and of course Northern Ireland. With over 80 oral presentations and 87 posters there was lots of learning available and we were delighted to see our staff in attendance and displaying their quality improvement work at this inspiring event.
Quality Improvement and Safety Conference
The Public Health Agency in partnership with the Health Service Executive & Royal College of Physicians in Ireland wish to announce the first Quality Improvement and Safety Conference specifically aimed at staff from Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Delivering Safer Care will be held in the Titanic Conference Centre on 12 & 13 March 2014.
The conference will showcase Quality Improvement and Safety initiatives in Health and Social Care across both systems and beyond. Mrs Maureen Bisognano, President and CEO, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) and Amanda Edwards Deputy CEO, Social Care Institute for Excellence (SKIE) are just two highlights of a quality programme. A poster with more details can be viewed or downloaded here. Attendance is free to delegates due to the support of the partnering organisations. The registration form can be accessed here.
Cross Border Patient Safety Project Wins First Prize at Irish Patient Safety Conference
Dr Jeremy Sargent and Ms Lisa Toland from Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda were participants in the cross border patient safety programme run by HSC Safety Forum, the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland and the HSE with funding from CAWT.
Jeremy and Lisa team developed a system to ensure early notification of admissions of cancer patients to their relevant primary team, ensuring early access to expert clinical input. The impact of this project not only includes timely access to appropriate expert care but also additional benefits including decreased unnecessary admissions, reduction in length of stay, reduced inappropriate investigations and treatments and improved patient satisfaction.
Please click here to view A Patient Centered Approach to Improving Communication across a Hospital pdf.pdf
Acute Kidney Injury
Dr Niall Leonard and staff from the Renal Unit, Ulster Hospital promoting the Acute Kidney Injury checklist as part of World Kidney Day 2013.
Dr Niall Leonard, Consultant Nephrologist at the Ulster Hospital was a mentor for the 2012 Leading in Safety, Quality and Experience Programme in South Eastern HSC Trust. Through this programme Dr Leonard’s team developed a checklist to aid the recognition and management of patients with Acute Kidney Injury in two Surgical Wards. This work has now spread across all Surgery Wards and is in the process of spreading to Medicine. Next steps are to work with Primary Care leads to adapt and develop a similar checklist for the community setting. Dr Leonard will be presenting a poster of his work at the International Forum on Quality and Safety in Healthcare 2013 in London.
Please click on the link to view the Acute Kidney Injury poster.pdf
Patient safety training programme a success
Friday, 7 December 2012
A unique cross border patient safety training programme brought together 27 senior managers and clinicians from hospitals and services on both sides of the border, to focus on best practice in patient safety and how it can be applied in local health facilities. To read the full press release please click here.
Prevention of Venous Thromboembolism: A Key Patient Safety Priority
Prevention of venous thromboembolism (VTE) is an important part of our strategy to improve patient safety. 
The Northern Ireland HSC Safety Forum established and facilitated a regional collaborative which developed a single VTE Risk Assessment Tool for N.Ireland.
In a letter issued in July 2011, the CMO commended the use of this assessment tool across the region. This should ensure that every adult patient has a documented VTE risk assessment on admission to hospital which reflects guidance from the National Institute of Clinical Excellence (clinical guideline CG92).
It is hoped that this unified approach to VTE risk assessment will also improve and streamline the training of medical and nursing staff and reduce the need for re-training if they move their place of employment.
This can also be viewed under the publication section.