Category > Quality improvement

PreCiSSIon announced as finalist in the 2024 HSJ Partnership Awards

News

We have been shortlisted in the ‘Most Impactful Partnership in Preventative Healthcare’ category at the 2024 HSJ Partnership Awards for our work with Cemplicity and healthcare professionals to reduce the impact of surgical site infections (SSI) following caesarean birth. The PreCiSSIon (Preventing Caesarean Birth Surgical Site Infection across a region) project focussed on work with…

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PERIPrem webinar highlights: The scope, data and challenges

News

PERIPrem stands for ‘Perinatal Excellence to Reduce Injury in Premature Birth’ and is a bundle of 11 interventions launched in 2020 across the South West region that have a significant impact on brain injury and mortality rates in babies born preterm. Implementation of PERIPrem is being encouraged across the rest of the country to help…

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Health Innovation West of England publish survey findings on maternity staff views, feelings and experiences of breastfeeding support and technology

News

As part of a real-world evaluation of the use of a parenting app, we surveyed maternity staff to understand their views, feelings and experiences around breastfeeding support and the use of technology. We are working with Gloucestershire Local Maternity and Neonatal System (LMNS)  to support their implementation of Anya, a smartphone parenting and breastfeeding app…

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Our name has changed to Health Innovation West of England

News

The Government and NHS England have relicensed England’s 15 Academic Health Science Networks (AHSNs) from 1 October 2023. To better reflect our role as the innovation arm of the NHS, our name has changed to Health Innovation West of England on this date. Celebrating our 10th anniversary this year, the AHSNs have worked locally and…

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Study shines light on successes of PReCePT programme

News

The success of PReCePT, a programme to increase the use of magnesium sulphate to prevent cerebral palsy in premature babies, has been highlighted in a new paper published in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. The paper shares the findings of the Health Foundation funded PReCePT study, part of the national PReCePT programme…

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New Director of Programmes announced

News

We are pleased to announce the appointment of Pete Carpenter as our new Director of Programmes. This is a new position being established within Health Innovation West of England (formerly the West of England AHSN), as the organisation receives confirmation of a new five-year licence from NHS England to 2028. Pete will lead an integrated…

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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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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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