High tech hospital handovers

Distributed: 26th May 2009

A high tech tool that helps doctors work more efficiently and improve patient safety has been piloted by a Wiltshire healthcare organisation in readiness for the European Working Time Directive (EWTD).

Working as an EWTD pilot site ahead of the introduction of the EWTD on 1st August 2009, Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust created a staff handover system called the Hospital at Night Patient List, giving doctors better access to patient information and improving organisation.

www.healthcareworkforce.nhs.uk/salisbury

Over 200 staff have been trained on the system, including junior doctors, senior house officers, registrars and consultants over the course of the two year project, commissioned by Skills for Health – Workforce Projects Team (WPT).

WPT are tasked with helping healthcare organisations find and implement solutions to EWTD. WPT has worked with wide group of stakeholders and pilot solutions that look for new ways of working, whilst also communicating best practice to the healthcare sector in the countdown to the 1st August deadline.

Speaking in the Royal Salisbury case study on the healthcare workforce portal Debbie Dupont, trust project manager, said: “The new system means that they (doctors) now have access to electronically written support, a list which can be printed to carry out. If a person cannot attend the handover they can access the information electronically.

"It enables staff to know exactly which patients they have to see, why and how urgently. The feedback from medical staff is that it is valuable and particularly beneficial at night. One doctor told me, 'I don't even have to look for a nurse, I know where I am going and who I am going to see'."

To find out more about the work conducted by Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust and WPT, visit their pages on the healthcare workforce portal, or view www.healthcareworkforce.nhs.uk/wtdcasestudies for all EWTD case studies.