News

Staff working in the NHS are its biggest asset and the NHS Long Term Plan rightly looks at how we can support them to provide the best possible care for their patients.

Our NHS Long Term update today is focused on how we can help to address current workforce pressures and provide a more supportive culture for staff

The Long Term Plan says that more will be done to develop and embed cultures of compassion, inclusion and collaboration across the NHS. Our innovative Yorkshire Safety Huddles are helping to improve staff communication and safety culture.

Safety Huddles

England’s 15 Patient Safety Collaboratives (PSCs) play an essential role in identifying and spreading safer care initiatives from within the NHS and industry, ensuring these are shared and implemented throughout the system.

The National PSC programme is funded and nationally coordinated by NHS Improvement and organised and delivered locally by the AHSNs. Locally this is funded by the Yorkshire & Humber AHSN and delivered by its Improvement Academy.

One initiative that already has wide reaching impact across the region is the implementation of safety huddles. Yorkshire Safety Huddles allow teams to work collaboratively to reduce harm at a ward team level.

Through huddles, teams identify patients who may be at risk, reflect on how they work together and how they can improve team communication and safety culture.

Through huddles, teams identify patients who may be at risk, reflect on how they work together and how they can improve team communication and safety culture. As at February 2019 , there were a total of 321 teams across the Yorkshire and Humber region who are huddling with a range of patient safety priorities.

We can demonstrate reductions in a variety of harms including Falls; to date 6,000 potential falls have been avoided with their associated long-term health and care impact equating to over £15 million of avoided healthcare costs. Teams also report increases in overall staff morale and improved teamwork.

Workforce shortages are currently the biggest challenge facing the health service. The Long Term Plan explicitly recognises the scale of this challenge and sets out a number of specific measures to address it. We’re proud of the work we’ve been doing with a Yorkshire-based company who are helping to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of out of hours home visits by GPs.

Doc Abode

Doc Abode is a clinical deployment platform developed by Dr Taz Aldawoud and we’ve been helping him to bring his innovation to the NHS.

Doc Abode is a realtime clinician deployment platform that enables clinicians to respond to requests for out of hours home visits based on their availability, proximity and expertise. It has a range of benefits, most notably for patients, it delivers speedier, more personalised care, improving their experience and outcomes and reducing pressure on front line services. For clinicians it provides a sustainable, motivating pattern of work, encouraging increased participation.

The Yorkshire & Humber AHSN has supported Dr Aldawoud and the development of Doc Abode starting with the AHSN’s Proof of Concept programme in 2016. The AHSN has subsequently supported its further development with pathway modelling, trials and a successful application to SBRI Healthcare’s GP of the Future call.

Doc Abode has recently been shortlisted in the prestigious Health Service Journal (HSJ) Partnership Awards in the Workforce Innovation Category.

More information

If you’d like to find out more about our Safety Huddles work please contact:

Mel Johnson, Programme Lead for Patient Safety, melanie.johnson@yhahsn.com

If you’d like to find out more about our work with DocAbode please contact:

Neville Young, Director of Enterprise and Innovation, neville.young@yhahsn.com

For more information about what we do and how we are supporting the delivery of the Long Term Plan please contact:

Kathy Scott, Deputy CEO and Chief Operating Officer, kathy.scott@yhahsn.com

Additional resources

Our response to the Long Term Plan
Yorkshire & Humber Patient Safety Collaborative
Safety Huddles in a care home setting