Clinical service achievements

The Endoscopy unit at Sir Robert Peel Community Hospital (SRP), one of our community hospital sites based in Tamworth, has achieved the prestigious Joint Advisory Group (JAG) accreditation, a hallmark of excellence in endoscopy services.

This achievement places the unit among an elite group of gastrointestinal endoscopy services in the UK and Republic of Ireland - recognised for meeting rigorous, high-quality standards in clinical care, patient experience, and service delivery.

We are thrilled that the Medical and Surgical Same Day Emergency Care (SDEC) teams at University Hospitals of Derby and Burton (UHDB) have been shortlisted for both the HSJ Patient Safety Awards and the NHS Parliamentary Awards respectively following a highly competitive nomination process.

This accomplishment recognises the incredible contribution of both teams to improving patient care and outcomes in our urgent and emergency care department and reducing operational pressure throughout the Trust, using the SDEC model.

The HSJ Patient Safety Awards will be taking place on Monday 16 September at Manchester Central, and the NHS Parliamentary Awards will be held on Monday 14 October at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre in Westminster, London.

The Imaging and Radiology department at University Hospitals of Derby and Burton were selected to attend the UK's largest Imaging and Oncology event to present their research on the approach used to train 85% of the newly recruited CT-specialist radiographers at the Trust to full competency within 10 weeks.

Teams at both University Hospitals of Derby and Burton's (UHDB) acute hospitals have been recognised nationally for providing the highest standards of care to patients when they are 'at their most vulnerable' as they undergo anaesthesia or sedation.

Patients who are having a knee or hip replacement at UHDB are benefitting from a state-of-the-art robot that helps assist their procedure, delivering more accurate, less invasive surgery, reduced recovery times, and improved outcomes for patients.

The Tobacco Dependency Treatment (TDT) programme recently marked a significant milestone, as it celebrated its one-year anniversary since its launch in September 2022 - helping thousand of patients on their journey to quitting smoking in just 12 months.

The TDT programme was launched across all UHDB sites to support patients and our communities in quitting smoking. This is a campaign that has been launched across the healthcare system in Derby and Derbyshire, as well as within our sites in East Staffordshire, which offers personalised support for treating tobacco addiction to all patients admitted to our hospitals, including pregnant people and their partners accessing maternity services.

The Liver team at Royal Derby Hospital has been recognised nationally for providing exceptional care for patients with liver disease - becoming the first centre in the East Midlands and the eleventh centre in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland to do so. The team demonstrated to Improving Quality in Liver Services (IQILS) assessors that they are providing safe care, improving services to those diagnosed with liver problems and developing plans to continue to evolve the service.  

The team behind the installation of Royal Derby Hospital's state-of-the-art hybrid theatre, which contains some of the most modern and advanced theatre equipment available, has been presented with a regional award.

Last week, we embarked on an exciting new project that will revolutionise healthcare delivery at Royal Derby Hospital. With around £10m of investment, the Kings Treatment Centre will expand to include a brand-new facility, providing state-of-the-art clinical facilities for planned operations and surgery, positioning us at the forefront of healthcare delivery in the UK.

This will bring immense benefits to our patients, with the main goal of the project to directly enhance the experience of the many thousands of people who require surgery throughout the year. By reducing waiting times for operations, we estimate that we will be able to increase the number of daycase and inpatient procedures by over 2,500 patients annually.

The team at Queen's Hospital Burton's (QHB) A&E department has become the first in the country and one of two centres in the world to gain accreditation for their use of an innovative emergency department triage system.

The first patients have received their cataracts procedure at Sir Robert Peel Community Hospital in Tamworth after the newly established service opened its doors.

The £2.9 million theatre, which is located next to the General Theatres suite, houses state-of-the-art equipment which allows clinicians to carry out more sophisticated, complex vascular and cardiology procedures, such as the insertion of pacemakers.

An innovative new form of radiotherapy that can save the lives of patients with cancer is being rolled out at UHDB, with the Trust being one of only a few centres that can offer this treatment.

Stereotactic Radiotherapy is a ground-breaking treatment which targets bony and nodal oligomets to give cancer patients a better quality of life.

Two UHDB colleagues are among the Derbyshire Shared Care Pathology team that have received a Royal College of Pathologists (RCPath) Achievement Award 2022.

The awards celebrate excellence in pathology service provision and are given to teams who have achieved above and beyond in areas such as quality improvement, setting up new services, innovation in service delivery, reaching new patient groups, or educating and training staff and students.

Two UHDB Urology clinicians are once more offering community prostate cancer screening after a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic.

Maternity services at University Hospitals of Derby and Burton have been rated in the top five in the Midlands for both antenatal and postnatal care. More than 200 women, half of which were first time mums, gave their views as part of a Care Quality Commission survey.

The team in Queen’s Hospital Burton’s Intensive Care Unit (ICU) has been presented with the latest Chief Executive’s Award for their “exceptionally high standard of care and compassion” during the pandemic and extensive recent renovation works in the department.

A newly refurbished area of the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at Queen’s Hospital Burton has now opened as is caring for acutely unwell patients following £5 million of improvement works.

The number of patients in Derby receiving life-changing dialysis from the comfort of their own home has increased – thanks to improvement work carried out by UHDB’s renal team.

UHDB has been formally recognised with a new accreditation that has strengthened the Trust’s position as an ally to the Armed Forces community. The Trust is proud to have such a strong working relationship with the Armed Forces and can count on veterans from the Military and reservists as valuable members of our workforce. After further emphasising this support by re-signing the Armed Forces Covenant earlier this year, UHDB has now been formally recognised with ‘Veteran Aware’ status by the Veterans Covenant Healthcare Alliance (VCHA).

Experts at University Hospitals of Derby and Burton and University of Nottingham have been awarded £1.2m from the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) to improve the rehabilitation of patients following surgery for finger flexor tendon injuries.

Five wards have been awarded with their bronze accreditation for the Every Day Counts initiative to ensure all patients are cared for in a safe, smooth and are appropriately discharged.

Surgeons at University Hospitals of Derby and Burton are the first in the UK to use a new image system during bariatric surgery. The team are using Indocyanine green fluorescence (ICG) technology to perform gastric bypass and sleeve gastrectomy to improve patient safety during surgery.

A new life-saving form of radiotherapy treatment is now being offered for the very first time at UHDB to patients with lung cancer. UHDB is now able to offer Stereotactic Ablative Radiotherapy (SABR) treatment at Royal Derby Hospital and last week began treating our first patient with lung cancer using the advanced technique. SABR allows for tumours to be targeted with very high doses of radiation over fewer sessions, using state-of-the-art image guidance technology, with this high level of precision especially important when treating cancer of the lung, due to there being a moving target as the patient breathes in and out.

Queen’s Hospital Burton’s Endoscopy service has been awarded a prestigious national accreditation. Joint Advisory Group (JAG) accreditation is only awarded to the top performing endoscopy units in the country and provides confirmation that the highest standards of patient care are being adhered to.

The Parkinson’s Service at UHDB has been recognised internationally as providing ‘outstanding’ care by becoming one of 47 in the world to be designated as a Parkinson’s Foundation Centre of Excellence. This comes after an inspection by the Parkinson’s Foundation carried out in October 2019, and is the second time the service has been awarded this prestigious accolade.

Eight brand new state-of-the art ultrasound scanners have been unveiled at Queen’s Hospital Burton as part of a £600,000 investment by University Hospitals of Derby and Burton.

Lauren Grimadell, Clinical Manager for Obstetric Ultrasound, said: “These new scanners really are a wonderful addition to the services we already provide within imaging, and will provide a wider range of scans and examinations which we can offer to our patients.

University Hospitals of Derby and Burton has given out its 20,000th coronavirus vaccine dose.

The milestone came on Tuesday, 2 February. The Trust has been handing out the vaccine to the most vulnerable local people in Derbyshire and Staffordshire as well as to frontline health and social workers since Tuesday, 8 December 2020.

A pioneering research study which aims to make operating theatres safer places during the Covid-19 pandemic and beyond is underway at University Hospitals of Derby and Burton NHS Foundation Trust (UHDB). UHDB is working in partnership with Rolls-Royce and Lancaster University to understand the spread of droplets in the air, generated when conducting Aerosol Generating Procedures (AGPs).

The Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at Queen’s Hospital Burton is undergoing £5 million of improvement works which will see the size of the unit expanded and extra isolation rooms installed.