Annual Priorities 2017/18
 
Our Priorities
 
Every year, we produce a Quality Account to demonstrate how well we are performing as a Trust around three measures - safer care, high quality care and patient experience.
 
This year, we have identified five main quality improvement priorities which we would like to be our main focus for 2017/18.  We want to ensure they are meaningful and achievable and so would like to hear your views about them and also if there is anything else that you believe we should focus on in the year ahead.
 
The priorities are only draft at this stage and your answers to this questionnaire will help determine the final safety and quality priorities we set.
 
The survey, which closes on 22nd February, is completely anonymous. However, should you wish to speak to anyone regarding any aspect of our services, please contact us by emailing ch-tr.hereforyou@nhs.net or calling 0208 401 3000.
 
Thank you so much for taking the time to give us your thoughts and helping us to improve our care for the people of Croydon.

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* 1. Priority One - To improve our support and care of people with mental health conditions
Croydon University Hospital sees approximately 200 patients a month with mental health conditions. They typically attend through the Emergency Department and are looked after by multi-agency Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS), the Working Adult Mental Health Service or the Older Age Mental Health Service.  Going forward, we want to focus on improving the experience of our patients and service users by ensuring we give everyone the best possible care through:
  • Early identification with patients who have a mental health condition
  • Development of new standards for health professionals when treating patients with mental health conditions
  • Development of a single point of referral for patients with mental health needs
  • Improve shared use of IT for communications between different organisations
  • Provide a telephone hot line for GPs to access advice about crisis management
Do you think this should be a key priority for the Trust?

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* 2. Priority Two - To create a culture of safety, shared learning and listening to our patients and service users.
Feedback from our patients and service users is so important to help us continuously improve our care and services.  It is also crucial that we learn from any incidents that occur, and from the compliments and complaints that we receive so that we can spread best practice from one team to the next, and take action to improve our care where it is needed.
This includes:
  • Improving on how we receive and act on real-time patient feedback
  • Increasing the number of 'no harm' and 'low harm' incidents reported so that we can learn from them and reducing the number of incidents classed as 'moderate harm'
  • Ensuring that the lessons learnt from any serious incidents are shared widely across the Trust to improve safeguards and embed best practice
  • Continuing to improve our performance on delivering Harm Free Care (this includes pressure ulcers, falls, catheter infections, venous thromboembolism (VTE) and medication errors)
  • Celebrating success and implementing learning from excellence and from 'always' events
  • Implementing and embedding the WHO checklist and the nursing strategy
Do you think this should be a key priority for the Trust?

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* 3. Priority Three - Reducing unnecessary delays when discharging patients home after a hospital stay, and reducing avoidable hospital readmissions
We know we can improve our patients' experience by having a more consistent and standardised approach to planning how we get them back home once they are ready to leave hospital.  We want to get it right, on time, every time.  This includes how we work with our partner organisations in Croydon, including social care, to better support people when they leave hospital.  We also want to make sure we are doing everything we can to make sure our patients are well enough before they leave hospital to reduce unnecessary readmissions.
We plan to do this through:
  • Improved documentation for patients who are ready to go home
  • Increasing the number of patients who are discharged before lunchtime
  • Reducing the number of patients who are transferred between wards after 9pm
  • Improving handovers and comprehensive and accurate records so that information is available in real time
  • Ensuring we have high quality clinical documentation
  • Taking steps to reduce avoidable readmissions
Do you think this should be a key priority for the Trust?

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* 4. Priority four - Improving the ways patients and service users access our care
Our patients access our care in many ways and we want to have a standardised approach and a streamlined pathway as this will ensure patients can get to the right place at the right time.  This is particularly important because we have a new Emergency Department due to open in 2017 and we want to ensure that people are not automatically coming through the department if they don't need A & E care. We plan to focus on the following areas in particular:-
  • The impact of opening of the new Emergency Department - due to open in 2017 - and how we communicate effectively with the public about the services it provides and where is most appropriate for their needs
  • Improving access for direct GP referrals so family doctors can directly refer patients to appropriate clinicians so they can be assessed quickly
  • Enhancing our care for early pregnancy/miscarriage to ensure that women receive specialist care and early intervention at the earliest opportunity
Do you think this should be a key priority for the Trust?

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* 5. Priority Five - Keeping more people in our local community healthy
Make Every Contact Count (MECC) is a national initiative that could help us use every interaction we have with people in our care to encourage changes in behaviour that have a positive effect on their health and wellbeing.  MECC focuses on the lifestyle issues that, when addressed, can make the greatest improvement to the health of Croydon residents throughout the borough.  This includes:
  • Stopping smoking
  • Drinking alcohol only within the recommended limits
  • Eating healthily 
  • Increase physical exercise and being more active
  • Keeping to a healthy weight
  • Improving mental health and wellbeing
Do you think this should be a key priority for the Trust?

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* 6. About you
Please tell us a little bit about yourself - you can select any that apply to you

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* 7. Are there any other areas you would like the Trust to focus on
Your views are important to us

Thank you very much for taking the time to give us your thoughts and helping us to improve our care for the people of Croydon

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