Trust shortlisted for patient safety award

Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust (NLaG) and its staff have been recognised for their efforts in infection prevention and control during the pandemic to keep patients, staff and the community safe.

Maurice Madeo, assistant chief nurse and deputy director of infection prevention and control at Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust, said: “The last year has been incredibly tough for everyone and has put great pressure on our NHS and healthcare workers.

"When COVID-19 reached us, we had to act fast, changing how we worked to mitigate the spread and keep our patients and staff as safe as possible. We implemented several measures to support us with this, which have since been recognised by the HSJ.

“Using our in-house software information system, WebV, we introduced digital flags to easily identify positive patients, when swab results were available, when patients required re-swabbing on day three and six as part of their hospital stay. We also introduced recovered flags so the operational teams and ward staff would know the patients were no longer deemed infectious as such could be removed from isolation if needed.

"The COVID-19 flags have helped staff to clearly understand where patients are on their COVID-19 journey and therefore manage their care and movement throughout our hospitals.”

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, maximising safety precautions for patients and vulnerable people in hospitals, care homes and across the community is as important as ever. These HSJ awards celebrate the teams at the frontline pushing the boundaries of patient safety and driving cultural change to minimise risk, enhance quality of care and ultimately save lives.

Mr Madeo added: “During the second wave we also introduced Redirooms, mobile carts that expand into an air-filtered isolation rooms to help to increase the space available for our isolating patients within our main admission and assessment areas. This allowed us to safely isolate positive or suspected positive patients until a full assessment could be done.

"We also undertook an in-depth evaluation on how the pandemic was managed and this allowed us to develop a vulnerability assessment tool which has since been adopted nationally.

“We are delighted to have been shortlisted for this award. Our staff pulled together in such an uncertain time. Their efforts, alongside these new measures really made such a difference to minimising the spread of COVID-19 within our hospitals.”

Ellie Monkhouse, chief nurse and director of infection prevention and control at the Trust, added: “I am extremely proud of the staff involved in creating and implementing these innovations and their shortlisting for this award. The safety of our patients is a priority and these measures have contributed significantly during the pandemic.

“I wish the team the best of luck and thank them for their continued efforts in keeping our patients, colleagues and the community as safe as possible.”

The winners will be announced at an awards ceremony will take place on September 20 at Manchester Central.