An update from Director of Nursing and Clinical Quality, Sandy Brown

Exec   Sandy Brown New OPT

I’d like to start by thanking everyone who worked over the Easter weekend. Although our call numbers went down compared to last year, it was still a busy period, which saw our control rooms receive more than 11,700 emergency calls. Thank you for all your hard work and excellent patient care. I hope those who worked or volunteered across the four-day weekend still managed to enjoy some time with your families!

As revealed last week, we are heading towards a general election. This means as of April 22nd, we have entered the pre –election period, known commonly as ‘purdah’. This period prevents announcements from and activities by public bodies which could influence or be seen to influence the election. Purdah will continue until the day after the general election if a new government is formed. NHS Providers have produced a very helpful briefing about purdah – what it means and what we can and cannot do. I encourage you all to familiarise yourselves with this. But if you have any questions or anything you’re unsure about when it comes to purdah, contact the communications team. They will be able to offer you any advice and guidance.

It’s that time of year again when we get ready to publish the Quality Account. It’s a document published each year, setting out the standard of service we provide, and what we want to achieve clinically over the next year. The document is a great source of good practice as it includes the Trust’s clinical priorities around Ambulance Clinical Quality Indicators, including care for cardiac and stroke patients, performance, the Friends and Family Test, learning from serious incidents and complaints. These will mean we are not only CQC compliant but show us as an organisation continuously moving forward and improving the quality of our services. Keep your eyes peeled for the published account on Need to Know.

There are two takeovers on-going that I would recommend you all take a look at. This month has been dedicated to End of Life care. I would like to thank our EoL care Lead Sarah Stead, who has put a huge effort into producing some fantastic work, ranging from recognising end of life patients, guidance on DNACPRs, briefings on just in case medications to an end of life flowchart. Well done Sarah! All EoL information is available on Need to Know and East24 for you to take a look especially as it is such an important part of the compassionate care we provide to patients.

This week has been our very first patient takeover week. It’s been a great chance to highlight the work of teams who help process all kinds of information, feedback, serious incidents and so on, which goes on to improve the patient’s experience and development of staff and volunteers. Teams such as patient public involvement and feedback. You can have a look back at the content on Need to Know and our Twitter feed, and see what our patients are saying about us and the care we give. Thank you to everyone involved!

We are in the very early stages of planning our clinical briefing day, which will take place on Tuesday 10th and Wednesday, 11th October. It will be a chance to showcase our clinical excellence. More details to follow soon on Need to Know.

You can also download our fantastic clinical app to view our Clinical Manual and the national Clinical Practice Guidelines, all straight from your device. For any clinical notices or updates we send out, you’ll also be notified through the app, and be able to read them online there and then. If you need any help logging in, please contact the Quality Improvement team, who will be able to help you.

Have a good week,

Sandy

Published 27th April, 2017

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