Hospital at Night goes international

Global interest in the Hospital at Night (HaN) model continues to grow as organisers work with a host of worldwide healthcare professionals.

Members of Skills for Health - Workforce Projects Team's national HaN team have visited the Netherlands, Hong Kong and Australia in recent months to speak at conferences and meet with international colleagues directly.

The aim of the visits was to help international healthcare teams and organisations learn from the HaN model and how it demonstrates effective use of workforce planning and supports patient care with effective and efficient multiprofessional teams.

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The national HaN team are regularly contacted by healthcare teams across the world interested in implementing the model.

The Hague, Netherlands 2008

Wendy Reid, clinical lead for HaN attended a number of events in
The Hague promoting the work, learning and impact of the programme, how it supported the new ways of working concept and the relations within multiprofessional teams, unions and the public sector.

As part of the EU programme, the national HaN team has also briefed the Centre of Enterprises with Public Participation (CEEP) study and European Hospital and Healthcare Employers’ Association (HOSPEEM) programmes which briefly documents the role of social dialogue and human resource management in the processes of modernisation and restructuring in public and social settings.

Hospital Authority Convention, Hong Kong, 2008

The Hong Kong Hospital Authority is responsible for over 40 publicly funded hospitals across the Special Administrative Region and each year hosts a large scale annual international healthcare event.

This year the national HaN team were invited to take part in the event, held at the Hong Kong Convention Centre, with more than 3,000 delegates in attendance. The guests heard a series of plenary sessions on the impact of work reform:

Sir Liam Donaldson, chief medical officer, Department of Health, England, provided an overview of work reform and impact on healthcare services from an England perspective.
Dr Patrick Chu, consultant haematologist and divisional medical director (clinical support), Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen NHS Trust and Hong Kong native, spoke about the initial Hospital at Night work and the impact it has made to patient care and outcomes in the North West.
Gerry Bolger, HaN project director and Skills for Health - Workforce Projects Team senior project manager, spoke about the HaN programme from a UK perspective and the learning to date with special emphasis on the role of the nurse coordinator to HaN teams.
Dr WL Cheung, director of cluster services, Hong Kong Hospital Authority, gave an overview of the doctors reform work in the region and how they are looking at HaN and other UK models to support a reduction in the working hours of doctors.

The Hospital After Hours Conference, Australia, 2008

The Change Champions organisation runs a series of best practice conferences across Australia and has now heard two presentations from the HaN team. The first of these presentations given in November 2007, with a talk on the Hospital at Night programme.

Invited back in May, Gerry Bolger gave a paper on the changes and impact the HaN programme has had across England and over the UK. While Adel Jones, project manager from South Devon Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust spoke about how local implementation of HaN has impacted on service delivery and how South Devon has taken the concept forward to a Hospital by Day model.

For more on all three events, don’t miss the Calling Time 12 special on Hospital at Night in October; or visit www.healthcareworkforce.nhs.uk for latest updates.

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