Clinical service achievements

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.

University Hospitals of Derby and Burton has given out its 10,000th coronavirus vaccine dose just more than a month after opening our ‘Vaccination Hub’ at Royal Derby Hospital.

The milestone came on Friday 15 January at 9.10am. 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.

Over 3,000 patients who have been cared for by Team UHDB have now been discharged from University Hospitals of Derby and Burton to continue recoveries from Covid-19.

Christine Cullen, 67, from Normanton, was the Trust’s 3000^th patient to be discharged from hospital after being admitted to the Royal Derby Hospital on Christmas Day.

UHDB has been granted £4 million to increase capacity in our two A&E departments which will enable colleagues to continue to provide safe care to patients during the busy winter months.

The funding will be split equally between Royal Derby Hospital and Queen’s Hospital Burton, with each site receiving £2 million.

UHDB have today started administering the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine at Royal Derby Hospital.

We spoke to some patients and UHDB staff ahead of rolling out the vaccine to get their thoughts.

Stillbirth rates at UHDB have fallen to their lowest level since the creation of the Trust two years ago and are now below the national average - thanks to the dedication and commitment of our maternity teams and supporting departments. Nationally, the average rate of stillbirths is 4.1 per 1,000 births, whereas the Trust’s stands at 2.2 per 1,000 births.

New research will look at how novel methods of kidney MRI scanning can help improve diagnosis and treatment for people living with kidney disease, thanks to a £1.9 million grant from the Efficacy and Mechanism Evaluation (EME) Programme – a Medical Research Council (MRC) and National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) partnership.

UHDB has “revolutionised” the way it discharges patients to ensure that they are the ones to benefit from not spending any more time in hospital than is absolutely necessary.

The Trust has changed the way that it discharges patients from hospital during the Covid-19 pandemic to help speed up the process of helping patients go home or on to their next place of care safely.

The Derby Gynaecology Oncology Centre, which is based at Royal Derby Hospital, has been recognised by the European Society of Gynaecological Oncologists (ESGO) for providing exceptional care and delivering better outcomes as a result of more comprehensive surgery for ovarian cancer. This makes the Trust one of only 47 such centres in Europe to be recognised by ESGO.

The Lymphoedema Service based at Royal Derby Hospital has become one of only 11 centres in the world to achieve special recognition for the care provided to patients. The service has been awarded the title of Comprehensive Centre of Excellence by the Lymphatic Education and Research Network (LE&RN) following an application which showed the service was excelling not only in patient care, but also in areas such as research, training and education.