Category > Patient safety

Why creating a positive safety culture is a critical part of the Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (PSIRF)

Blog article

Across England, NHS service providers have been working through the Patient Safety Incident Response Framework since it was published a year ago in preparation for the transition to a new approach in autumn 2023. In this blog, Nathalie Delaney, Senior Programme Manager at the West of England AHSN, explores why understanding and creating a positive…

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Improving outcomes for patients needing non-invasive ventilation care

Blog article

In this blog, Dr Mark Juniper, Respiratory Consultant at the Great Western Hospital, Swindon, and Medical Director at the West of England AHSN, gives a progress report on the collaborative to reduce mortality following acute non-invasive ventilation (NIV). He tells us how sharing the data collected for this project can help deliver the improvements needed……

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Discover, develop, deploy: creating an innovation pipeline for the West of England

Blog article

As we celebrate the 75th birthday of the NHS this year, our Chief Executive Natasha Swinscoe and Chair Steve West reflect on another milestone we are also marking here at the West of England AHSN. We’ve come a long way together since we were first established in 2013 as you can see from our illustrated…

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Improving maternity care – lessons from scaling up the PReCePT programme

News

Enhanced quality improvement (QI) programmes may be necessary to support the adoption of best practice in maternity units with less developed integrated working practices, a new paper published in the Journal Implementation Science suggests. The research builds on ARC West’s evaluation of the AHSN Network’s national PReCePT programme, led by the West of England AHSN,…

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SHarED programme to support ‘high impact users’ of emergency departments shortlisted for national patient safety award

News

We are a finalist in the 2023 HSJ Patient Safety Awards for our work with local hospital trusts to improve outcomes for ‘high impact users’ of emergency departments (ED). Shortlisted in the ‘Urgent and Emergency Care Safety Initiative of the Year’ category, the SHarED (Supporting High impact users in Emergency Departments) programme was based on…

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Implementation of RESTORE2: Mortimer House Nursing Home

Blog article

In August 2020, four nurses completed the West of England AHSN’s free RESTORE2 Train-the-Trainer learning to implement and embed RESTORE2 into Mortimer House Nursing Home. In this case study, nursing Clinical Lead, Lorna Hewlett, describes her experience of using RESTORE2 and the impact the tool has had on the home’s ability to effectively manage deteriorating residents.…

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Photo shows pharmacist selecting medicines from shelf

Creating shared learning spaces to help clinicians address problematic polypharmacy

Blog article

Chris Learoyd is Senior Project Manager at the West of England AHSN, overseeing our medicines optimisation programmes. In this blog, Chris explores some of the work we are currently involved in to help reduce harm from medicines. Medicines safety and improvement work is complex: patients are prescribed medicines in different settings across the entire healthcare…

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Anti-racist training in the Black Maternity Matters pilot shown to increase the cultural competency of maternity staff

News

Evaluation of the pilot phase of Black Maternity Matters shows the project has successfully helped to increase the cultural competency of maternity staff, with the value of the education and training programme demonstrated through both participants’ feedback as well as their resulting actions. Black women* are four times more likely to die during pregnancy or…

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Working together to reduce caesarean birth infections

News

The West of England AHSN is working collaboratively with the region’s six acute maternity hospital trusts on a new project to reduce surgical site infections (SSI) following caesarean births. In March 2023 the first wave of four trusts launched their use of the locally developed PreCiSSIon (Preventing Caesarean Birth Surgical Site Infection) care bundle. The…

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Transforming asthma care across the South West of England

News

The West of England and South West AHSNs, alongside the South West Severe Asthma Network (SWSAN), have been working with 10 hospital trusts across the South West of England to improve asthma pathways and enhance access to innovative treatments for adult patients. A new evaluation shows the collaborative project, which was awarded Pathway Transformation Funding…

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