Four innovative pieces of work to benefit patients in Lincolnshire’s hospitals have been recognised at a national level.
The projects run by United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust were celebrated at the Fab Awards 2016, held in London last week. These awards are run by the Academy of Fabulous NHS Stuff, celebrating all the fab people, best practice and innovation happening across the NHS and social care.
All four projects were shortlisted for an award, and one came out on top as the winner in its category.
The projects were:
- The carers badge. ULHT developed a carers policy to ensure we consider carers as experts in care, but it was identified that there was a problem with identifying who was a carers. To help us do so the Trust launched its carers badge, which enables carers to be at the hospital 24/7 if they wish, to be present at ward rounds and whenever they need to be. Winner of the Rosa Parks award.
- The Lincoln care home service. This is a team of doctors, nurses and therapists
who will visit every nursing and residential home in the Lincoln area over the next two years. The team assesses every resident of every home, including reviewing medications and assessments of cognition, mobility, mental capacity and future care needs, with the aim of reducing the number of people being admitted to hospital unnecessarily. Shortlisted for the Penguin award. - Reusable ward information table mats developed by the patient experience team. The aim of the mats is to improve the experience in hospital by providing every patient with information about their ward, ward routine, who they will see any other helpful information about their stay, at their bedside. The mats can be customised to each ward and are easily updatable. Shortlisted for the TNT award
- Staff engagement the ULH Way. The Trust joined with a number of other NHS trusts across the country to develop staff engagement and integrate it into everything we do in the organisation, so that staff feel supported and empowered to have their say and make changes to improve patient care, services and their working environment. Shortlisted for the 4 candles award
Deputy Chief Nurse at United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust, Jennie Negus, led the carers badge project and said: “It was fantastic that all four of these amazing projects were recognised by the Academy of Fabulous NHS Stuff. We have staff doing some really innovative work for the benefit of our patients, and in my eyes everyone shortlisted was a winner.
“We were so pleased to have come out on top in the Rosa Park award, as we are very proud of our carers badges and the way they enable us to identify and better work with carers of patients in our hospitals.”