Health matters Dec 2014

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December 2014

Issue 9

QE maintains band 6 rating The Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Gateshead has again been named as one of the safest in the country, retaining the top rating from the national regulator.

The new inspection system first started in 2013 and The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has now confirmed that the QE will remain at a band 6 rating (the highest possible).

QE Gateshead was first awarded band 6 status in Octo-ber 2013, while an unannounced inspection in the same year provided unprecedented praise and a clean bill of health for all of its services.

The report gathers local and national data and assigns each NHS trust a banding based on their risk to pa-tients. Every trust in the country has been graded from band 1 (highest risk) to band 6 (lowest risk) and Gates-head Health NHS Foundation Trust remains at a band 6 rating.

Ian Renwick, chief executive of QE Gateshead, said “I’m very proud that we’ve once again been given the highest rating by the CQC. This is fantastic news for the hospital and for the thousands of patients we treat every year. It is the strongest possible acknowl-edgement of the efforts made by our staff to provide high quality care to all of our patients day in, day out.

“Very few hospitals around the country have been able to achieve and maintain this high standard and I know that all our staff work so hard to ensure services are safe, caring, responsive to need and well led. Our managers and front line clinicians are working together every day to ensure that areas of good practice can be shared across the trust.

“This is a very exciting time for health services in Gateshead and this news comes as we prepare to de-liver some major developments at the QE during the rest of the year. A new £32m specialist emergency care centre is about to open for our patients and it's something that we're all incredibly excited about. We've also opening a brand new state-of-the-art pathology centre of excellence, which is one of the best facilities of its kind in the UK."

QE facing major service pressures Like many other NHS organisations across the country QE Gateshead is currently facing significant

pressures on both beds and hospital services .

This winter has seen unprecedented demand on our services and we are currently working through the North East Escalation Plan (NEEP) to help manage these pressures.

There has been more activity this week, than at any other time in the Trust’s history and this demand has created some challenges in terms of space, resourcing and capacity.

The North East Ambulance Service has also raised its operational status to ‘severe pressure’ under a framework to protect core NHS services for the most vulnerable patients in the region.

We’ve had to make some changes to our usual way of working to manage this demand, so thank you for being so flexible during this time. We do know that these pressures are also being felt across the whole health and social care system.

We’re also supporting the Keep Calm and Look after yourself campaign across the North East which en-courages the public to think carefully about using other NHS services before calling 999 or going to their local A&E department.

Read more…….

New Radiology IT systems

An IT project supporting more than 170,000 medical examinations a year will help make radiology here in Gateshead easier, safer and more efficient. We are one of the first NHS foundation trusts in the country to adopt the new technology which pro-vides the quick and easy access to clinical radiology imaging and reports that doctors and consultants need.

The project is the result of many months of work and brings improvements in patient care as well as some major cost savings for the NHS in Gateshead.

As part of the work the project team migrated more than one million medical studies, around 15 Tera-bytes of image data plus over 20 years of radiology patient and attendance data into the new IT solu-tion, so that the trust can better store, protect and share radiology information.

The ground-breaking work recently undertaken when we were required to exit the National Programme for IT (NPfIT) PACS contract has introduced the successful implementation of a Vendor Neutral Archive (VNA) for the storing, protecting and sharing of imaging data as well as the replacement of the legacy PACS.

This was whilst also replacing the legacy Radiology Information System (RIS) system which had been in place for over ten years and had significant workflow inefficiencies which presented risk to patient care.

QE Gateshead has been working closely with IT suppliers Carestream and Bridgehead to deliver a single, coordinated IT system for Radiology.

Community health services workshop a big success A local event that saw healthcare, voluntary sector and social care staff coming together to talk to members of the public was a bit hit with people in Gateshead.

The engagement event provided an opportunity for more than 60 local people and health and social care staff to talk about how all these services fit to-gether, but also where they could improve.

The agenda nationally is for greater integration between all agencies providing care to the public and delivering services that fit into a wider plan of improved ‘care closer to home’.

A joint team from major local organisations who deliver services to people in Gateshead held the en-gagement event for patients and professionals.

The team was made up of professionals from QE Gateshead, Gateshead Council and Gateshead Com-munity Based Care were on hand to listen and consider how services might be improved.

Delegates provided feedback using electronic tablets which then provided real-time feedback during the discussions.

The workshops were designed to bring together local people and professionals to:

Understand how the health, social care and voluntary sector currently works for local people.

Listen to real examples of how the public experiences healthcare in the community, at home and in hospital.

Think about how the current system fits together and how all agencies can work differently.

Understand how we can improve integrated care across Gateshead.

Following the event a project team involving staff from the three organisations will meet regularly to develop some of the ideas and discuss the feedback gathered on the day.

Pictured left to right: Gill Wiggham from QE Gateshead; Helen Lumley, Dr Bill Westwood and Dr Jerry Warwick from Gateshead Community Based Care and QE chief executive Ian Renwick.

Coming soon: A new emergency care centre for Gateshead

Construction work on our new major Emergency Care Centre in Gateshead is now almost complete.

The new £32m Emergency Care Centre at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Gateshead will bring state-of-the-art healthcare services to people across Gateshead and the bright, modern building includes single occupancy rooms and en suite bathrooms for all patients in the short stay wards.

Once complete, the new Emergency Care Centre will modernise the way patients are cared for during an emergency by bringing together a wide range of services.

Ian Renwick, chief executive of QE Gateshead said “It will be a unique hospital building and the environ-ment for patients and visitors will be something special. Work is now almost complete on the exciting new £32m Emergency Care Centre which will provide an amazing new building for people in Gateshead.

“This innovative new facility will not only provide a state-of-the-art unit right here in Gateshead, but will also revolutionise the patient experience during medical emergencies. Our patients will have greater dignity because they will not need to be moved long distances across the hospital for treatment and will also experience improved surroundings with single bedrooms and en-suite bathrooms.”

Michael Melia, Ryder Architectural Director, said “Working closely with the Trust, our design enables co location of services into an integrated model which creates greater efficiencies, future proofs the build-ing’s long term viability and performance and ultimately offers a better service for the people of the ar-ea.”

Once building work is complete the hospital will be fitted out and existing departments will move into the new facility. The building is then expected to open in early 2015.

To see a video of what the new ECC will look like click here

For more information on the ECC visit our website

New pathology centre Our new pathology centre for excellence is now up and running in a state-of-the-art, £12m building at

the QE site. There’s also a new website here: www.qegateshead.nhs.uk/pathology

FACT events information

Best ever year for reducing infection

So far, 2014 continues to be the best ever year for the prevention and reduction of infection at the

Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

QE Gateshead adopts a zero tolerance approach to avoidable infections including Meticillin resistant

Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and has zero reported cases of MRSA bacteraemia during 2014 so far.

Throughout the whole year QE Gateshead continues to be a high performing Trust and has maintained

one of the lowest rates in the region for:

Meticillin sensitive Staphylococcus aureus (MSSA) bacteraemia rates

Escherichia coli(E. coli) bacteraemia

MRSA

GP report at Trust board A report about improvements and closer working with General Practice colleagues has been

presented the Trust board.

Working in collaboration with colleagues across the hospital, local authority and general practice we are

currently working on four main areas this year that form part of our CQUIN scheme.

Ensuring that we achieve the targets for GP Handover Forms being issued within 24 hours on

Medical wards and ensuring via a quality audit that the forms are complete, accurate both in

terms of diagnosis, investigations and medications.

Improving the communication of results – including standardisation of letters to inform patients

of results after tests and to improve the communication of cardiac ECHO results.

Improving the standardisation, quality and timeliness of OP letters in 3 agreed areas.

Improving the timeliness and quality of Accident and Emergency communications with GPs.

The paper provides an overview of the progress the Trust has made in these important areas of patient

safety and you can read a copy of the report on the website.

If you have any questions or feedback about the report contact: [email protected]

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