Clinical Service Delivery

The role of care and comfort assistant was introduced as a twelve month pilot scheme in May 2013 at the Countess of Chester NHS Foundation Trust. The Countess of Chester’s Planned Care Division has employed six new members of staff to improve care and comfort for patients and their families.They are known within the division as the ‘Countess Six’, as their role was developed to reflect the six fundamentals of care known as the 6Cs; Care, Compassion, Competence, Communication, Courage and Commitment.

Aintree University NHS Foundation Trust, in collaboration with Edgehill University has developed a Supporting Learners in Practice (SLiP) multi-professional workshop which is designed to prepare clinical staff to support students within the work environment. This workshop is delivered to a wide range of staff from nurses through to dieticians, radiologists, scientists, physiotherapists, speech andlanguage therapists, and assistant practitioners.SLiP workshops aim to provide clinical staff with the necessary skills to support learners in practice.

Stockport NHS Foundation Trust has developed a strategic approach to inter-professional learning (IPL) in practice. Work initially began in 2007, when the Trust was invited to be a pilot site for Manchester Metropolitan University’s 'IPL Champions' Group'. A 'champions' model approach was implemented at Stockport, with a clear structure of champions identified at different levels within the organisation.

In 2011 the Trafford division of Bridgewater Community Healthcare Trust developed a project aimed at enhancing the School Nursing service delivery of the National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP). The NCMP involves local areas collecting data on the height and weight of children in English schools in Reception Year and Year 6 to enable the Government to monitor obesity trends (DHOT, 2012).

Advancing Quality (AQ) is a proven approach to reducing variation and improving clinical outcomes for patients in the North West of England. The programme was launched in 2008, with five conditions highly relevant to the North West population, and with a strong clinical consensus around an evidence-base for better patient outcomes. Two years later, Advancing Quality became the flagship programme of the Advancing Quality Alliance (AQuA) and has been supported by Clarity Informatics’ Quality Improvement Service (QIS) since 2010.

Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust introduced competency-based safe medicines management training for all nursing staff and non-medical prescribers in May 2012. The aim is to improve understanding of medicines management and thereby reduce medication errors.The training is delivered as a single three hour face-to-face, interactive session to groups of up to twenty staff. The trainers are senior pharmacists and senior pharmacy technicians.

In 2009, Greater Manchester Children, Young People and Families’ NHS Network undertook the expansion of a consultant-delivered service using a ‘Resident Shift Work Consultant (RSWC) work plan’. The public consultation decision to this reconfiguration was to reduce the number of 24 hour consultant-led units for paediatric and maternity services in the Greater Manchester area from 12 to a maximum of eight, and to increase the number of neonatal intensive care units from two to three.

In 2010 Five Boroughs Partnership NHS Foundation Trust was reported to have an absence rate of nearly 7%, with musculoskeletal sickness absence accounting for 17% of this.A new physiotherapy manager reviewed the existing physiotherapy service at the Trust in the last quarter of 2010 and implemented a number of changes in 2011 in order to improve the service. The new system was based on the principles of rapid access and the results have been extremely positive. 

In 2013, the Clinical Skills and Simulation team at Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust (PAHT) recommended that a patient-centred approach to care needed to be reinforced much earlier in health education.The purpose of this pilot study was to introduce simulation into the education of the multidisciplinary cadet scheme, currently run by the Skills for Health Academy.

The Inter-professional Oncology Study Day is one of a series of inter-professional study days available to multi-professional learners held within Royal Liverpool & Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust (RLBUHT).The aims of the day are to improve learners’ appreciation and understanding of the oncology patient’s journey, and how they can influence this through a multidisciplinary team (MDT) collaborative approach. Complementary to this, a session is delivered to identify the MDT roles and approach in oncology.