A brand new report showing how patients are benefiting from the Hospital at Night method of care was published in September.
The Case for Hospital at Night - The Search for Evidence was produced by Skills for Health - Workforce Projects Team using data analysed by The NHS Information Centre for Health and Social Care and aims to assess the impact of the programme on single site NHS trusts in England.
The extensive study reveals that hospitals taking part in the initiative show:
A positive move towards improved patient care, treatment and results
A reduction in the mortality ratio in the pre to post implementation period
A reduction in the number of patients needing to be transferred to other centres for treatment
An increase in productivity and teamwork.
The Hospital at Night project was initiated by the Department of Health and successfully piloted by the Modernisation Agency in 2004. Since then it has been implemented across the wider NHS. The programme ensures that competent and skilled multiprofessional teams are on hand at night and out of hours to provide varied, immediate and ongoing care for patients, as well as delivering clinical effectiveness.
Despite the increased use of Hospital at Night across the NHS, only anecdotal evidence and limited examples to illustrate its effectiveness existed.
Because of this, Workforce Projects Team and The NHS Information Centre worked together to fund a study assessing a cohort of 22 NHS trusts who reported they had successfully implemented Hospital at Night against a set of nationally identified datasets.
Twenty initial indicators were selected for analysis, however these were rounded down to 15 because of the lack of available data on five of them. Not all 22 trusts implemented Hospital at Night at the same time which contributed to this issue.
Gerry Bolger, senior project manager, Workforce Projects Team, said: “We recognise the limitations of the study due to the small cohort, but the available data does appear to show that Hospital at Night is contributing to the improvement in patient care and outcomes for patients out of hours.
“It shows a reduction in the number of deaths within two days of admission and reducing the number of deaths within two days of surgery/procedure -
the reduction in the sites studied was greater than the all England average.”
Diana Hamilton-Fairley, deputy medical director, Guy’s and St. Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, said: “The study is extremely important as it illustrates the importance of Hospital at Night. This method of working switched something on in the heads of healthcare professionals which made them realise that patient safety matters.”
“The Hospital at Night and Taking Care 24:7 are just two of the innovative programmes to support the NHS as we strive for Working Time Directive implementation. The success of schemes such as these shows how whole systems approaches can ensure the quality of patient care remains high, whilst providing time and opportunity for clinical training and a satisfactory work/life balance for staff.”
Lord Ara Darzi, Parliamentary under-secretary of state
Working Time Directive 2009 
