We welcomed Dr Jane Cheeseman, Maria Holancova and Fiona Hutcheson to tell us more about the Quality Improvement (QI) programme in NHS Lothian which aims to ensure safe, effective and person centred care for all. It involves everyone in healthcare – staff, patients, carers, researchers, planners – to make the changes that will lead to better patient outcomes, better system performance and better professional development. QI continually finds new and better ways of doing things, with patient centred care at its heart.
The priority areas for 2017-18 are to improve the quality of the inpatient care pathway, improve access and improve the mental and physical health of patients, by: providing focused, planned and defined support that helps patients to achieve personal goals and move towards recovery; reducing the number of patients who are harmed; reducing the number of patients re-admitted to hospital; reducing the time patients spend in hospital waiting for an alternate level of service; ensuring effectiveness of the interventions provided by services; providing the right care at the right time in the right setting by the right provider; and providing access to a range of community services.
The 39 current projects in NHS Lothian include:
improving the therapeutic milieu in acute in-patient settings at REH; improving the structure and communication of ward rounds reviews in acute psychiatry; reducing the number of falls within older peoples’ wards at REH; improving use of clinical capacity in CAMHS by understanding and addressing patient non-attendance. The Patients Council is planning a project on patients’ experiences of moving to the new hospital.
We asked questions about smoking, patients seeking alternative treatments, monitoring data, wastage, inadequate community services on discharge from hospital, and drugs/alcohol.
Further information: https://qilothian.scot.nhs.uk/
New issues: sharing of medical records; book on each ward of photos of each hospital meal available, to overcome language and communication difficulties.
