News
Newcastle Hospitals “sweep the floor” at Regional Health and Social Care Awards
Staff from the Newcastle Hospitals did the organisation proud when they won a third of the categories (more than any health or social care organisation) at the North East’s 7th annual Health and Social Care Awards ceremony, held at the Hilton Newcastle Gateshead on Thursday 3rd April 2008.
These prestigious awards were established to recognise the amazing commitment and dedication of our health and social care workers who are so passionate about their work and continuously improving the services they provide.
This year our winners were:
Children’s Ventricular Assisted Devices (VAD) Team -
Service Transformation Award
Children who come into our care with severe heart failure and assessed by heart specialists as in need of a heart transplant require specialist clinical support until a suitable donor can be found. If the child’s condition cannot be kept stable using medication then mechanical support using an artificial heart pump (also known as VAD) can now be offered as a “bridge” to either transplant surgery or until the heart has been able to recover itself without the need for surgical intervention.
The Freeman Hospital became one of only two major heart treatment centres in the UK to offer this highly specialist surgical technique and successfully carried out its first operation in November 2005. Since this time this leading-edge service has expanded considerably with children in need of VAD support referred here from all over the country. It became apparent that high dependency beds would be required on the Children’s Heart Unit so that staff would be able to provide the specialist care these very poorly children need, often for several weeks or months until a donor heart becomes available.
Providing such world-class treatment meant that nearly all of our paediatric cardiac staff underwent a major and intensive training programme to acquire the clinical skills and competencies required – this included everyone from consultant transplant surgeons to theatre and ward staff, and even our wonderful play specialists. This was only achievable through the exceptional team commitment our staff are renowned for, working over and above their normal duties to ensure a safe and truly inspirational service for everyone who comes here. This can be demonstrated by our superb results with survival rates improving from 50% to 77% over the last 10 years.
Flexible Sigmoidoscopy in the Community –
Innovative Health and Social Care Technology Award
Our endoscopy staff have established a flexible sigmoidoscopy clinic at the Biddlestone Road Health Centre in Heaton, Newcastle upon Tyne in partnership with Newcastle Primary Care Trust colleagues. This is a one-stop nurse-led clinic which makes it easier for some of our patients to access our flexible sigmoidoscopy service and ensures rapid referral to hospital should any serious conditions be suspected or commencement of straightforward treatment.
We are delighted to announce that this service has now been shortlisted for the prestigious national Health and Social Care Awards 2008 and our staff will be attending the finals in London on 1st July 2008 as part of the NHS 60th anniversary celebrations.
Paediatric Cardiothoracic Transplant Database –
Innovative Information and Communications Technology Award
The Paediatric Cardiothoracic Transplant team have developed a centralised database of information about children who have had heart transplant surgery at the Freeman Hospital. These very special children have extremely complex medical histories requiring frequent review appointments for examinations and tests, and seeing many different healthcare professionals. The database means that all aspects of historical and clinical information for each child’s care can be held centrally, accessible by authorised clinical staff, making sure the care they receive is well-coordinated and safe.
The TransSAFE Project –
Safety in Care Award
Our ingenious haematology staff have developed a new piece of equipment called a TransSAFE blood transfusion verifier which uses a bar code reader to check and record all blood and blood products leaving the laboratory and again at the patient’s bedside. The bar code reader checks the product type and positively identifies the patient. This innovative new system allows blood and its products to be checked by one nurse which reduces human error, ultimately making blood transfusion safer for our patients.
Audiology Department –
Improving Access Award (runner’s up)
Staff from our Audiology Department were runners up in the "Improving Access Award" in recognition of their amazing dedication and commitment to making sure that all our patients requiring a digital hearing aid can be seen as quickly as possible. In recent months they have worked over and above their normal duties to drastically reduce waiting times for re-assessment from over 102 weeks in January 2007 to just 6 weeks today.
