Safer Culture, Better Care...Safer Culture, Better Care swahsn.com The South West Patient Safety Collaborative has introduced a validated assessment tool for safety culture in England,

Safer Culture, Better Care

swahsn.com

The South West Patient Safety Collaborative has introduced a validated assessment tool for safety culture in England, using a survey called SCORE (safety, communication, operational risk, resilience and reliability, and engagement).

As part of the ‘Safer Culture, Better Care’ programme, this anonymous survey gives individuals and teams a fresh perspective on their current patient safety culture.

Case study

South West Academic Health Science Network, Pynes Hill Court, Pynes Hill, Exeter EX2 5AZswahsn.com

Impacts/ outcomes

The challenge

The impact

Plans for the future

Safety Collaborative (SW PSC), led by the South West Academic Health Science Network, set out to find a different approach to help health and care teams understand their culture and take steps to improve it.

The South West is the first region in the UK to use the SCORE survey methodology from Safe and Reliable Healthcare, LLC. The survey is an internationally recognised way of measuring and understanding the culture that exists within organisations and teams. It provides an overview of culture but also provides detailed feedback in specific focus areas such as communication, staff burnout, resilience, leadership and teamwork.

In the NHS, the culture of the organisation and the culture of the team can have a huge impact on the quality of care patients receive and the outcomes of their treatment.Within organisations, an improved safety culture is also associated with greater satisfaction and engagement from staff. The South West Patient

‘Carrying out the SCORE survey has been really beneficial; staff engaged and have shown real care for their results.

The survey has given us a structured way to look at our culture at work, identify aspects that are important to our staff, and generated workable ideas to improve staff health and wellbeing.’

— Carrie Biddle, Therapies Clinical Governance and Quality Lead, Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust

For more information call 01392 247903 or email [email protected]

Adoption and spread

The aim has been to engage as many teams as possible around the region to take part in the SCORE survey. This has included staff in all of the acute trusts in the South West, plus mental health trusts, hospices, care homes, a clinical commissioning group and GP practices, ranging in size from 12 to 400 staff.

Since April 2015, over 9,000 staff in 96 health and care settings in the South Westhave been invited to participate in a survey, and over 90 staff from across the South West have been trained in interpreting and debriefing the results of SCORE surveys.

Momentum has built both regionally and nationally. The SW PSC co-leads a national patient safety culture work stream, and other regional and national collaboratives are now using safety culture assessment. The SW PSC will continue to spread SCORE to more teams, linked to its ‘Deteriorating Patient’ work stream and the Maternal and Neonatal Health Safety Collaborative roll-out.

These were the elements that helped the take-up of the culture survey:

• The approach concentrated on the quality of the process.

• Word of mouth and recommendation was key.

• Awareness-raising of safety culture regionally generated interest.

• Public and patient involvement should be part of the process. Some teams involved patients in their debriefing or improvement planning.

• Individuals leading the work within teams usually have an interest in the subject matter, which motivated their involvement and that of the team.