17 November 2020

A poster on keeping patients moving through Covid-19 and another on increasing the dietetic input into The Older Person’s Assessment Service (TOPAS) were the two winners in the category of Covid and non-Covid safety initiatives during CNWL’s online Safety Conversation Day.

Empowering Patients to Keep Moving through Covid-19 was a winning project in the Covid section while Increased Dietetic Input into The Older Person’s Assessment Service (TOPAS) won in the non-Covid section.

The Trust received 170 poster entries from staff on a range of safety topics including the safe environment, safety tools and safe use of medicines.

There were 60 entries in the category of Covid and non-Covid safety initiatives

The Covid poster prize winning entry was based on a project led by Helen O’Regan, Alistane Serafim and Caitlin Smyth, from the Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and Home Oxygen Service, at St Pancras Hospital.

It describes how the team made an online version of a Pulmonary Rehabilitation (PR) course to help COPD patients manage their symptoms.

The programme usually consists of twice weekly face to face exercise classes and an educational session, all with the aim of patients moving, breathing and managing their symptoms better.

As the pandemic took hold in March, all non-essential face to face and group programmes were indefinitely suspended, along with many COPD patients were advised to shield at home.

The team launched the programme remotely online in July, with two exercise classes and one education session per week and has proved popular.

Now the team is looking at continuing the programme beyond the pandemic.

View the winning Covid project

The runners-up in this section were:

Communicating while wearing a mask: To show staff how to communicate while wearing a mask

The impact of introducing a “SuperNova 0-19 Team” to minimise disruption due to redeployment: In April, 27% of 0-19 Children’s Universal Health Service staff were redeployed to support Adult Services. In addition, 13% of staff were shielded. The service made sure the service continued to be delivered by changing its ways of working. New guidance was written and a corporate ‘SUPERNOVA’ team was launched to cover all the work for the whole service. Some contacts were virtual and home visits were continued in PPE. The team that stayed in the service covered the work of the 27%.

The non-Covid winning entry was a project to improve patients’ nutritional needs and to provide nutritional training for staff by commissioning more dietetic time from Milton Keynes University Hospital (MKUH).

TOPAS provides assessment and treatment for mainly older people who have complex or acute mental health needs and supports people to return to independent living wherever possible.

Before June 2020, TOPAS commissioned one hour of dietetic time each week from MKUH, but this was increased to a day each week in June 2020 to support service development and training.

Specialist Community Dietitian Katy Savage was tasked with:

  • Making sure that 100% of patients have appropriate Nutritional Care Plans,
  • Making sure there is appropriate prescribing of oral nutritional supplements
  • Providing nutritional training for staff

The end result is an improved understanding of nutrition among patients, families and staff.

View the winning non-Covid project.

The runners-up in this section were:

Nile Ward PICU Violence Reduction Quality Improvement Project: Reducing inpatient violence is a major quality improvement (QI) priority for CNWL. The aim was to reduce incidents of inpatient violence and aggression at Nile Ward Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU), St Charles Hospital by at least 30% between December 2019 and December 2020 using a number of ideas. This has been successful with violence being successfully reduced by 43%.

Cracks in the Hepatitis C cascade of care: real life outreach data from four central London services: This project aimed to identify where at-risk patient groups are lost in the Hepatitis C care pathway. Hepatitis C (HCV) is a key public health threat which causes severe chronic liver disease, leading to hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). In England, about 113 000 patients are chronically infected with HCV. Of these, about two-thirds are estimated to be undiagnosed. At-risk patient populations often have multiple factors complicating treatment engagement, such as concurrent mental health diagnoses, no fixed abode, substance misuse and incarceration. These patients are at a higher risk of falling through the cracks in the treatment pathway. Analysis of the data shows that to improve testing and treatment uptake there needs to be a same-day testing and treatment approach as well as simplified ways of blood taking (capillary sampling).