UHDB celebrating year of improvement practice to develop patient care
UHDB is celebrating a year of embarking on an improvement practice this month. On 12 April 2018, we were chosen as one of seven trusts nationally to take part in a programme which draws on learning from an American hospital to enable staff in a new improvement method which delivers results that patients will see and feel.
The Trust was awarded a place on the scheme, called ‘Vital Signs – an improvement practice for the NHS’, after submitting an application to NHS Improvement.
The improvement practice will strive to transform and continuously improve the care we deliver to our patients, while improving the efficiency of our working habits. The practice focuses on lean techniques and a systems approach, an approach widely used across the commercial sector which is applied to processes to identify waste and concentrate on what adds value to the customer.
Sharon Martin, Executive Chief Operating Officer at UHDB, said: “Identifying new and innovative ways of working is vital to ensure our patients continue to receive the highest quality of care and that staff feel enabled to deliver safe services.
“We’re really pleased that we’ve been accepted onto the NHS Improvement Practice programme because we believe is the way that UHDB will deliver these changes going forward; empowering frontline staff who see the challenges every day, to make effective changes to the services through continuous improvement.”
Staff and patients are coming together during the first two weeks of April at Queen’s Hospital Burton, to discuss how the discharge process for patients can be developed under the improvement practice model.