Andrew Ward team recognised for improving patient safety by reducing number of patient falls
The team at Sir Robert Peel Community Hospital's Andrew Ward has been praised for implementing learning following a patient fall to help drastically reduce the frequency of incidents and improving patient safety.
In recent months, the team has embedded a number of improvement projects, including 'End PJ Paralysis', which encourages patients to get out of bed and get dressed every day to increase mobility and limit deconditioning, changing the layout of the ward to ensure those patients at increased risk of falls are more visible for staff, and ensuring best practice for bed rails and other important patient safety features are shared and adhered to across the team.
The team's commitment to reduce the number of falls on the ward has been notable and has led to a drastic decrease in falls - with no patient suffering a fall in October and November 2023.
As recognition for their outstanding practice and for improving outcomes for patients, Andrew Ward was recently presented with our latest Patient Hero Monthly Making a Difference Award.
Katie Stanley, Senior Sister on Andrew Ward, explained how the team came together to investigate the incident that sparked their learning and improvements and how every member of the team contributed to making a difference to patient safety:
"We had a bad fall where a patient came to harm and as a result, we came together to design changes based on what we learned from this incident. Everyone on the ward pulled together as part of our multi-disciplinary team (MDT), including doctors, nurses, and therapy staff, for a stop moment where we looked at what we could do differently to prevent this from happening again.
"It was a really good, helpful, and constructive conversation and we made sure that everyone had a voice and then ensured everyone knew the learning and where to access tools to help them implementing this afterwards and it's proved to be really effective."
The ward is a 'discharge to assess’ ward, ensuring the final aspects of care and support is given to patients to prepare them to be discharged home or to their next place of care, such as physiotherapy. Many patients under the care of the Andrew Ward team are frail or have a cognitive impairment, which increases their risk of suffering a harmful fall.
Despite the complex needs of patients cared for on the ward, the team has made outstanding progress and has reduced the number of patient falls, bringing that number down to zero for two consecutive months in late 2023.
Ellie-Mae Dawes, Sister and Falls Champion for Andrew Ward, praised the collaborative work of all involved and shared her pride at the team being presented with their award.
She said: "Everyone has been really engaged and on board with everything we've been trying to achieve and made a commitment to dig deeper into what we can do to mitigate these risks at our handovers and we've seen a real improvement as a result - it's been a real collective effort.
"It's lovely to be presented with this award, and we are all so proud to have our learning shared across the Trust, it means a lot to the team."
Natalie Keightley, UHDB's Senior Falls Practitioner, worked with colleagues on Andrew Ward to help the team implement changes, and said she is delighted to see the improvements that have been made and praised the compassion and commitment to learning everyone has shown:
"The staff on the ward all show clear compassion and kindness and have all worked to ensure avoidable incidents of harm are reduced, making the ward a safer place and boosting the team's morale.
"The team on Andrew Ward embody our Trust values and have all worked together to achieve consistent excellent care by embracing learning from incidents and completing continuous quality improvement projects."
Rebecca O'Connor, Executive Director of Corporate Development, presented the team with its award, and praised colleagues for their constant drive for improving outcomes for patients.
She said: "I was really excited and privileged to present you with this award after hearing about your absolutely fantastic work on falls and the positive impact it has had on patient safety. Your work has improved outcomes for those in our care and you have driven forward continuous improvement - this is so important for the Trust and especially so as we launch our Compassionate and Inclusive Leadership programme.
"Your learning has been shared across other wards which is excellent to hear, and it is inspiring teams like you, who are helping us to deliver Exceptional Care Together by driving improvement and sharing your learning. On behalf of our Executive Team and everyone at UHDB, thank you to all the team for everything you are doing."