6 teams and individuals have been put forward for the 2019 NHS Parliamentary Awards.
Local MP for North Bristol, Darren Jones, has once again championed our fantastic, hard-working, kind and compassionate staff for the NHS Parliamentary Awards.
The awards provide us with an excellent opportunity for to engage with our local MPs, and to tell them about the work we do, as well as building or strengthening relationships. We are therefore delighted that Darren has put forward a number of nominations for teams or individuals for a variety of categories.
The list of nominees, nominations and the award they've been put forward for, can be found below.
The Care and Compassion Award: Ali Brown & the Department of Kindness
In 2018, the Fresh Arts programme at North Bristol NHS Trust commissioned artist Ali Brown to take up residence at Southmead Hospital, Bristol. With funding from Southmead Hospital Charity, Ali installed the Dept. of Kindness to encourage people to look after themselves and others by recognising and sharing acts of kindness.
The Dept. had its origins in 2015 when Ali met Dawn, a patient at the hospital. Ali asked Dawn what she would say to another patient having a hard day. Dawn answered: “Kindness is everywhere. You just have to notice it.” Dawn’s words planted an idea with Ali that grew into The Dept. of Kindness.
Open in the Brunel building at Southmead between January and March 2019, the Dept. used creativity to make kindness visible. Staff, visitors, patients and volunteers were encouraged to drop in, share their stories of kindness and find out about others. It became a place to celebrate kindness and also consider being kind to yourself. It was a space in which to feel inspired to perpetuate further acts of kindness and recognise that, amidst working and living in challenging times, kindness can change everything.
As NHS staff can feel huge stress and pressure, the project also wanted to encourage staff to look after themselves and actively practice self-compassion by taking up residence in staff rooms with the touring version of the Dept, the Cabinet of Compassion.
At the end of the project, Ali took people’s stories and created blue plaques which were installed around the hospital, to mark spots where great acts of kindness have taken place. 20 patients have taken part in kindness stories and badge-making workshops alongside 135 staff and 39 visitors.
The Excellence in Healthcare Award: Breast Cancer Living Well Course team
The Living Well Course is an innovative group programme supporting women with their recovery following breast cancer. It has been developed and delivered by a multi-disciplinary team at North Bristol NHS Trust - breast care nurses, clinical health psychologists, and volunteer experts by experience - patients who have personal experience of going through cancer treatment.
The team recognise that going through cancer is much more than the treatment - past patients described a sense of feeling ‘abandoned’ once the medical cavalry had stepped back. Thus, the course starts from the premise that the end of treatment is the beginning of something else – a process of rebuilding one’s sense of self and confidence in moving forwards – physically, emotionally, spiritually, and socially.
The course has been carefully developed, based on evidence-based techniques woven together with experiences from people who have been through treatment. The course draws on an Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) approach, a combination of mindfulness, compassion, and practical strategies to cope with lingering symptoms including fatigue, body image, and anxiety about the future. A unique aspect is the central involvement of the patient volunteer, who brings their personal experience and expertise about coping beyond cancer treatment to women who are currently coping with the challenge of how to move forwards in meaningful and positive ways. It is an inspiring example of health professionals and patient volunteers working together.
Despite the significant increased workload that the team has faced (due to the marked increase in diagnoses), the Living Well team have been committed to providing compassionate, effective whole person care to their patients through the ongoing delivery of the course.
The courses typically include up to 12 patients per group and we have run over 30 breast care courses to date.
The Future NHS Award: Clinical Coding team
Clinical Coding is the process whereby information written in the patient notes is translated into coded data and entered onto hospital information systems for statistical analysis and financial reimbursement from Commissioners.
Coding provides an essential service to North Bristol NHS Trust (NBT), benefitting quality of care, patient safety, income from activity, and supporting research and best practice initiatives. In 2017/18 NBT’s Clinical Coding function was given a ‘Significant Assurance with Minor Improvements’ audit rating by KPMG, citing the comprehensive nature of its proposed Clinical Coding Improvement Strategy for 2018/19.
Our Coding Strategy delivers on 4 aspects of improvement for the trust and its patients:
• Quality: Ongoing monitoring of the standard of clinical inpatient notes arriving to coding, together with a scheduled review and redesign of processes and documentation across each Specialty area. This has resulted in a series of new and accurate pro-forma for communicating patient information, and a push to standardise and embed good practice.
• Technology & Reporting: The on-boarding of new Medical History Assurance (MHA) technology has assisted the standard, depth and completeness of inpatient coding, alongside collaboration with our internal Business Intelligence (BI) function to deploy new self-service dashboards. This has enabled clinical divisions to track patient activity and interrogate recorded consultant-level clinical information.
• Engagement: The embedding of a review and feedback mechanism at leadership, clinical specialty, and consultant level within each of the trust’s divisions, clearly positioning the Coding team as an essential support function in the provision of exceptional patient care. There is also demonstrable alignment with nationally-mandated GIRFT initiatives.
• Financials: As a tangible by-product of the other areas of the strategy, the Trust is able to recoup an accurate level of income relating to the activity undertaken, which in turn ensures appropriate budgeting for services as part of the Commissioning process.
The Healthcare Equalities Award: Southmead Midwifery Team and the Learning Disability Tool
Nominated for for their ‘My pregnancy, birth and newborn baby’ booklet.
The booklet has been in circulation since September 2016 having been created by Catherine Poole (a Community Midwife Team Leader) while helping to create the learning disabilities and pregnancy guidelines. After a successful pilot, the 117-page booklet has been printed with funding from the Hospital's League of Friends.
The booklet was originally designed for clients with a learning disability but has been found to also be very useful for families where English is not their first language, or where parents have hearing impairment, are cared for within prison or with head injuries. It’s a booklet designed to look like the maternity hand-held records and takes the clients through the pregnancy, birth and postnatal journey step-by-step to the point that Health Visitors are involved.
The large text and colour images promote understanding and points of discussion, engaging new mums and dads in their baby’s care in a less formal and wordy way. The booklet has been presented at the Royal College of Midwifery (RCM) Conference and has also been shortlisted for an RCM Award. The team hope to share the booklet with all NHS Trusts and help source funding to get it printed.
The Lifetime Achievement Award: Jackie Binns
Jackie has worked for the Trust for 40 years and has progressed within her career from enrolled nurse to ward sister. Before the move to the Brunel building, Jackie ran the Day Hospital at Frenchay where patients would attend for IV therapy, blood transfusions and review by Medical colleagues. She built during this time a strong bond with some consultants to include Dr Nigel Jones, Dr Ronnie Barber and Dr Robert Przemioslo, who speak fondly of Jackie.
Jackie and her team's reputation grew considerably within the medical division resulting in the growth and a number of other specialities wishing to use the day hospital for their patient's treatment. Jackie was heavily involved from the outset of the design of Medical Day Care Unit (MDCU) within the Brunel Building. She met with the key stakeholders to agree on the environment for patient groups to be treated taking into consideration the anticipated growth of such a valuable service.
Jackie and the nursing team are responsive to the growing needs of the organisation and the local community. Often these results in changes being driven by the nursing team, for example, the Flicker clinic, a pathway for heart failure patients through the administration of IV frusemide therapy and blood products. Jackie and the team look for opportunities to grow their service; she is an inspiration to the nursing profession.
Jackie takes on any challenge with enthusiasm, passion and commitment always putting the needs of her patients first ensuring they feel safe and well cared for. She is still also is the only nurse in the trust that provides a ear syringing service to all patients.
The Wellbeing at Work Award: Staff Wellbeing Programme
The wellbeing and health of NHS staff is crucial to supporting patients.
The Wellbeing Team at North Bristol NHS Trust recognised that they could not succeed in their strategic goal of exceptional patient care without an exceptional staff wellbeing programme. Their message is “Your health is as important as our patients’”. They set a goal to improve staff wellbeing and a comprehensive programme of interventions was introduced, aimed at three areas aligned to the most common reasons for sickness absence: Psychological Wellbeing, Musculoskeletal (MSK), and Lifestyle.
For Psychological Well being, they have two full-time psychologists running a mixture of open-access and team-based group sessions and 1:1 support accessible to all staff across the trust including Sleep, Fatigue and Pain Workshops, ACT with Mindfulness Workshops, bespoke Team Interventions and 1:1 support.
In addition to the support provided by the Staff Wellbeing Psychology Team, they also have the following in place an employee Assistance programme; offering free 24/7 confidential services to staff, 50 Mental Health First Aider’s specifically for staff , 135 colleagues have received Mental Health Awareness training and 30 TRiM Practitioners to respond where staff have experienced trauma.
Focusing on the physical element of the programme, Physio Direct consists of two full-time physiotherapists on-site to provide initial diagnosis and advice within 2 days, and treatment within 2 weeks. In addition to this, Physio Advice is a proactive prevention focused service visiting teams with high levels of MSK sickness in their working environment, undertaking assessments and showcasing physical exercises prevent musculoskeletal problems
For Lifestyle Support the Trust have several internal programmes including, mood and food group, over 40s Health MOT, 24-hr Health Check kiosk, walks to wellbeing, healthy commuting, a staff Wellbeing Room and a Winter Staff Nurse.
The programme is large in scale and consequently has reached out to help a large number of staff. In total, across the 16 different interventions, there were over 3500 separate wellbeing ‘contacts’ with staff during 2018.
The total cost of the interventions for 2018 being £255,276. By August 2018 it had saved £237,083 in salary costs alone and is forecast to save £355,624 for the full year, thereby creating a net saving which can be reinvested into patient care. This is purely measuring the direct salary costs of sickness absence – it is thought that the indirect costs of sickness absence are at least as much as the direct costs again.