The Clinical Services Journal reports on The Productive Ward: Releasing time to care programme and looks at its successful implementation at Airedale NHS Foundation Trust, where is has helped to improve infection control rates and reduce medication errors.
As the focus on quality and efficiency becomes sharper in the NHS, ward teams need to ensure they are delivering the best possible patient care in the most productive and cost effective manner. The Productive Ward: Releasing time to care programme has been developed by the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement and co-produced with NHS organisations, to help ward teams identify significant improvements in productivity and efficiency by helping staff to create an environment where quality is maximised, processes are efficient and variation is minimal, and where patients feel safe and well cared for. The programme is currently being implemented in over 89% of acute Trusts across the NHS in England. Many organisations implementing the programme have already achieved significant benefits. By improving processes and efficiency, The Productive Ward can help organisations to “release time to care”, which can subsequently be used to:
• Focus on other quality initiatives – such as High Impact Actions or focused safety programmes. These initiatives themselves have important quality and cost saving implications. Reducing harm from infections, falls and pressure ulcers will improve patient care and save the NHS money that would be spent on treating these harm events.
• Reduce length of stay as patients are discharged appropriately, or harm events are minimised. It is possible to reduce the number of excess bed days and also see a reduction in the occupied bed days.
• Take advantage of the efficiency gains to move capacity from acute settings to other service areas, in line with achieving local strategies of moving care closer to home.
Airedale NHS Foundation Trust, for example, has drastically reduced its rates of MRSA and C. difficile infections by using visual management techniques from The Productive Ward programme. It has cut staff sickness levels and improved patient satisfaction. Crucially, the Trust has successfully addressed the problem of medication errors on a ward of elderly patients by improving the handover process and using the time saved to extend the medication round.
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