Safer Care Checklists project - presentation at Health Foundation Event
Professor Catherine Pope will be attending the Health Foundation Innovating for Improvement event in London, on Thursday 30th March with Dr Mike Clancy (UHS) to present their completed project on Safer Care Checklists. The project team includes Kate Lyle and Ursula Rolfe (FHS) and Dr Kate Pryde (UHS).
Healthcare organizations strive to deliver safe, high quality care that meets the needs of patients. Adverse event reports, complaints and feedback indicate areas where proactive involvement of the patient could improve patient experience, through better understanding, reduced anxiety and potentially reduction in avoidable harm.
At University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust we developed a simple patient-administered intervention that aimed to empower patients to be more active in their own care. It prompted real-time feedback and encouraged patients and professionals to address any concerns together at the point of care.
We co-designed two forms with patients and staff - one for Emergency Department (ED) ‘walk in’ attenders, and one for young people admitted to Paediatric wards. We tested using these forms in each setting to compare the effect in contrasting environments.
The intervention was positively received by patients and staff, but did not fully deliver the desired patient empowerment. We successfully created a ‘case for change’ but discovered that this particular solution may not be suitable for all patients or staff. The project provided powerful insights about patient care journeys, care practices and real world challenges to improvement. We are spreading this learning.
Related Staff Member
Professor Catherine Pope BA (Hons), PhD
Catherine Pope is Professor of Medical Sociology within Health Sciences, University of Southampton where she leads the Emergency and Urgent Care (EmU) research group. Her research examines health care work and the organisation and delivery of health services and this has entailed recent work on NHS 111 urgent care services, the role of evidence in GP commissioning and studies of ambulance services. She has contributed to major national evaluations of NHS treatment centres, Walk-in Centres and Access to General Practice, and was an invited methodological expert to the Chantler independent review of plain paper packaging of tobacco. Catherine has played a leading role in developing qualitative methods and evidence synthesis in health services research and is co-author of significant books and journal papers on these methods.
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