Contact the Library for further information on any of the topics listed below.

Report highlights variation in maternity care across England – RCOG
Differences in the care received by women giving birth in hospitals across England are highlighted in a state of the nation report published by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) today.
The report, carried out in collaboration with the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, gives a national perspective on patterns of care during labour and delivery, enabling NHS trusts to examine their own practice in context and ensure their services meet the needs of women and their families.
For the first time, the information can be accessed in an interactive format on a new website launched today (https://indicators.rcog.org.uk).

Stark contrast in maternity inspections due to ‘different hypothesis’ – Health Service Journal
The Care Quality Commission has said it reached radically different conclusions about an east London maternity service in the space of a year partly due to using different inspection formats.

ECIP Quick Guide – Red and Green days (Dr Ian Sturgess) – The Academy of Fabulous NHS Stuff
The Red:Green Bed day is a visual management system to assist in the identification of wasted time in a patients journey.  It is most applicable to in-patient wards in both acute and community settings.  It is not appropriate for high turnover areas such as ED, Assessment Units, Clinical Decision Units/Observation Units, and Short Stay Units where Red:Green hours/minutes may be more appropriate.

Acute floor – Royal Sussex County Hospital: The New Single Clerking Process – The Academy of Fabulous NHS Stuff
Our processes for unscheduled care are unequal and inefficient. Patients expected from GP referrals can wait unnecessarily long for a specialty team to clerk, while patients coming by ambulance are seen promptly by ED (emergency department) doctors. Junior doctors re-clerk patients, which adds in a delay to the senior-decision making process and often no added value – someone who was the ED F2 1 month ago is now the clerking medical F2.

Our performance data from the second half of 2015  indicated huge room for improvement: the average time for patients to get a decision to admit (DTA) was 5 hours, with approximately 30% of patients getting a DTA within 3hour and 45 minutes – a time that is crucial for moving patients out of A&E within 4 hours.

Taking Board Meetings outside the room – The Academy of Fabulous NHS Stuff
Trust Board meetings sometimes aren’t the most engaging or interactive of experiences, and any meeting that takes place in one place in one town will be limited in the number of people it can reach.  At The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust (SATH) we’re on a journey, using social media to take our meetings outside the room and bring communities (real and virtual) into the room.

New elective care unit improves acute patient flow at Derby – Health Service Journal
A&E attendances have increased by 4,000 each week compared to last year. To protect elective services against these rising pressures Derby Foundation Trust has developed a 24-bed elective care unit.

The 6 As of managing emergency admissions – Dr Vincent Connolly – The Academy of Fabulous NHS Stuff
Emergency admission to hospital is a major event in people’s lives. It should never happen because it is easy to admit or to access services that could be available as an out-patient or to administer treatment that may be available closer to home or to get a specialist opinion. All of these are spurious reasons for an emergency admission. To transform emergency healthcare we need to understand why we put patients through this process when alternatives exist and operate effectively across the country but haven’t been widely implemented.

Trusts told to improve bottom line by tens of millions – Health Service Journal
Regulators are banking on a major turnaround in financial performance at many acute trusts next year to improve the sector’s bottom line – even after they have received relief funding.

NHS Improvement promises new way of authorising FTs – Health Service Journal
NHS Improvement will take a “revised approach” to authorising foundation trusts when it takes over from Monitor and the NHS Trust Development Authority, a director has confirmed.

Community trust’s failures compared to Mid Staffordshire – Health Service Journal
A catalogue of governance and care failings at Liverpool Community Health Trust has been likened to those found at Mid Staffordshire Foundation Trust in a damning report. Contact the Library for a copy of the Capstick Report.

Aintree’s Discharge 2 Assess model – individualising the pathway to re-enablement – The Academy of Fabulous NHS Stuff

What was the problem? The safe and timely discharge of patients is one of the biggest problems facing NHS hospitals. “The objective of discharge is not simply to get the person out of hospital, but also to provide seamless support, to ensure a return to their home or care home in the best possible physical, mental and emotional state.” Commission on Dignity in Care for Older People, June 2012.

What was Aintree’s solution? The Aintree@Home service was started in 2012; staffed by 6 therapists, the teams vision was to facilitate safe and timely discharge, providing Aintree’s patients with a re-enablement programme to promote independence, wellbeing and provide a high standard of care. We have achieved this by completing on going functional assessments of the patient in their own environment for an individualised period of time and where appropriate hand over, refer and/ or signpost on to relevant services.