Thursday 1 December: Executive message from Melissa Dowdeswell, Director of Nursing, Safety and Quality

Focussing on patient safety

Maintaining the quality and safety of the care we give is ingrained in our everyday practice and I thank everybody for the care they give to our patients. Therefore, this week I’d like to share the new way that we will be responding to serious incidents moving forward.

Sometimes what we do does not go to plan and an incident occurs, which needs investigating. It is really important that we continue to foster a culture of learning rather than a culture of blame and I would encourage everyone to record any incidents through our Datix system so we can learn lessons and continue to improve. In some cases the incident is so serious that it needs to be declared as a serious incident through our safety panel by using the Serious Incident Framework (SIF), this was introduced nationally in 2015.

In the coming months the SIF will be phased out and we will be implementing the Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (PSIRF). This will be a fundamental shift in the way we look at incidents, moving from the root cause analysis process to a system-based approach. However, for some of our incidents such as delays in responding due to hospital handover delays we have already adopted this PSIRF style of investigating. Early indications show this has been well received by our patients, external partners and regulators.

Adopting the PSIRF model means that we can involve patients at an early stage to find out more about their experience and learn from it. We will also look at the systems involved including how and why an incident occurred and will have less emphasis on who was involved.

Rather than looking at individual incidents, too, the new approach means that we can look more broadly and identify the most common types of incidents and the themes within our Trust in a systematic way so that we learn from incidents in a supported and non-judgmental way, focussing being a learning organisation rather than apportioning blame.

This is huge change for all NHS organisations in how we manage incidents. The PSIRF will be embedded in all Trusts by September 2023. Over the coming months we will update you on the progress of the project and there will be further information coming out to you all. 

Thank You Thursday

This week our Thank You Thursday comes from one of our own EEAST colleagues.

‘On the night of 8^th November, I was driving on the A130 towards Chelmsford and witnessed a lorry collide head on with an overtaking car. I dialled 999 to help the car driver and the call handler was excellent, professional and calm - the sense of relief when the call handler informed me that help was on the way from all the emergency services was incredible. Chelsea English and Tiffinie Randall both took calls from drivers caught up at the scene of this accident and I’d like to thank them along with frontline colleagues and HART, who all mobilised extremely quickly and treated the injured driver at the scene.’

 

Thanks to you all,

Melissa Dowdeswell
Director of Nursing, Safety and Quality

 

IMPORTANT TRUST NEWS FOR CASCADE

• Staff survey now closed

  Thank you to everyone who responded to the national NHS Staff Survey We achieved a 57% response rate,  one of the highest within the ambulance sector, and an increase of nearly 10% on last year’s response rate. This is a great achievement given that many Trusts both in our region and  nationally have seen their response reduced this by about 10% this year.

  The results of the survey will be embargoed until February 2023 and we’ll update you when we have more details. The results will be used to make improvements to your experience of working for EEAST.

• Flu jab update

  The flu clinics come to an end this week, thanks to everyone who has been along to get their jab or supported us by reporting that they’ve had their vaccine elsewhere. We’ve vaccinated a total of 64% of our colleagues to date. This is 2% above last year and 6% above the NHS average).

  If you have had your vaccine at your GP or a private appointment then please complete the form to let us know as we have to evidence that we have offered all of our staff the opportunity to have the injection. Likewise, if you have decided not to have it this year please complete the form, again it just shows you’ve been offered the jab but have declined.

• StayWise

  The StayWise educational learning platform is now available on iPads across the Trust and is proving useful for teams who are waiting outside hospitals with our younger patients.

  The free app brings together the educational resources of all the emergency services and safety charities in one place. The games available cover safety topics including reducing avoidable injuries and deaths within our communities.
  
  Since we made the app available earlier this month it’s already been downloaded over 900 times and can be helpful if you’re waiting with children or younger people.  

  We would love to hear if you have used these resources yourself, so please let us know by emailing internalcommunications@eastamb.nhs.uk.  

Published 1st December 2022