Three teams in the South Eastern Trust staff certainly had a reason to celebrate at the recent HSCQI Awards, held in the La Mon Hotel as part of the NICON 2022 Conference.
The HSCQI Awards are held annually and recognise the innovative and excellent quality improvement work that takes place across Health and Social Care in Northern Ireland. The awards are an opportunity to celebrate and share examples of best practice with a focus on evidence and data improvement.
This year the Trust picked up three out of the eight awards, with winners from a variety of disciplines.
The Ards Children and Family Team won in the ‘Using a QI Approach to Reduce Health and Social Care Inequalities’ for their work in reducing ‘Unallocated Cases’ in the Newtownards area.The ‘Staff Wellbeing’ Category was won by the Covid Recovery and Staff Wellbeing team for their work in supporting our staff in the pandemic.
The Trust’s Speciality Rapid Access Hubs were triumphant in the ‘Improving Timely Access’ category for their work with patients. One of the main benefits of the hubs is to divert patients who may attend the Emergency Department frequently as a result of their condition, which in turn reduces unnecessary waits, hospital admissions and improves the overall patient experience. The Trust currently has eight Speciality Rapid Access Hubs. They treated treated approximately 15,000 patients during 2021/2022.
Consultant in Adult Services, Dr Jennifer Addley, explained the benefit of this innovative service saying, “Getting the right patient to the right specialty in a timely manner improves the safety and efficiency of the patient journey and has been shown to improve clinical outcomes.
“The Trust has set up eight specialty specific ‘Rapid Assessment Units’ accessible to Primary Care, the Emergency Department and hospital wards; this allows patients who are unwell to be seen quickly by the specialist they need.
“The Rapid Assessment Units have been developed with our service users to meet their needs and help to reduce the numbers of patients using the Emergency Department, reduce hospital admissions and speed up the process of patients being discharged from hospital. The feedback from patients using the units has been very positive with patients reporting reduced anxiety, improved confidence in managing their conditions and improved quality of life overall.”
Chief Executive, Roisin Coulter was delighted to see South Eastern Trust Staff presented with their awards saying, “This is a fantastic achievement and I am delighted three teams who work within the Trust were crowned as winners at the HSCQI awards. This is so well deserved and I would like to congratulate everyone from our Speciality Rapid Hubs, Covid Recovery and Staff Wellbeing Team and the Ards and Child And Family Team for all their hard work.”