More than 50 colleagues from the region’s health and care system attended Kent Surrey Sussex Patient Safety Collaborative’s Managing Deterioration Patient Safety Improvement Programme collaborative event at the end of January. 

The theme of the day was “Looking back to plan ahead” and our attendees rose to the challenge magnificently by offering to discuss their projects and implementation journeys at the event, which was held in Maidstone.

We heard from Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust’s Director of Digital Transformation, Neil Perry who spoke about digital solutions and using wearable tech in their trust. 90% of our delegates provided feedback that they felt that this session was relevant and useful.

News2

We also showcased Medway Foundation Trust’s Acute Response Team’s project on implementing electronic NEWS2 and lowering the thresh hold for concern. Emma Coutts’s presentation of this topic resulted in energetic discussion between the Critical Care Outreach Teams of other Acute trusts in the room. One of our Sussex teams have, since, contacted Emma’s team expressing an interest to go and visit and learn more which is fantastic!

We took onboard feedback from previous collaboratives and included a session on the patient journey within the system focusing on how standardised tools like NEWS2 affect the various touchpoints and transitions of a patient during this journey. Denise Hylton-Mcintosh, Head of Patient Safety at Kent Community Health NHS Foundation Trust, Dean Rigg, Head of Clinical Audit at South East Coast Ambulance NHS Foundation Trust and Ed Kingdon, Consultant Nephrologist and Clinical Lead, Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust brought their valuable insights and experience in presenting this topic.

The importance of data

Another theme for the day was “Data” so we kicked off the day with an insightful talk by Simeon Shentall and Sage Bannister, Analysts at Kent, Surrey and Sussex Academic Health Science Network. Delegates were introduced (and in some cases, reintroduced!) to the Deteriorating Patient Dashboard and had to work in groups to participate in a fun and challenging quiz.

Our final session of the day was Storyboards where we had five projects presented in the form of stories. We had presentations from Surrey, Sussex and Kent organisations and 95% of our delegated who provided feedback agreed or strongly agreed that this session was relevant and useful.

Throughout the day, delegates had the opportunity to question the presenters, discuss how they will move forward within their projects and identify what support they would need in order to have the maximum impact on patient safety.

Thank you!

Thanks to all those who participated actively and to the event management efforts of Bhavnita Sharma, Sharon Drazek, Catherine Young and Karen Parsons.  We look forward to seeing you at the next collaborative.