Salisbury update EWTD project

With the countdown to the implementation of European Working Time Directive (EWTD) entering its final stages, Debbie Dupont, Hospital at Night IT project manager at Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust updates on the latest work around their IT Handover system ahead of the 1st August deadline.

"Our IT Handover EWTD pilot project with Skills for Health – Workforce Projects Team (formerly NHS National Workforce Projects) was completed in August 2008. The system is now a major aspect of our way of working and is used to support Hospital at Night handover identifying patients of concern to the team.

"Since August 2008 we have been trying to secure funding to support the ongoing work around embedding the use of the system in practice, its further development and implementation into other NHS trusts. We have already implemented it in two external trusts, whilst others have expressed an interest.

"We are in the final stages of rolling the system out to all ward nursing and therapy staff. Other allied health professionals (AHP) are now taking part and enabling true trust wide multi professional sharing of information for handovers in conjunction with the productive ward project. We are now in the process of developing the system into a risk tool. By implementing risk alerts, staff can recognise specific patient associated risks enabling handover to take a risk adverse approach. The first of the risk alerts is VTE (venous thromboembolism), warning staff when a patient is due an assessment. At the click of a button the system records an audit trail providing evidence of the assessment having been done and a report on the compliance achieved. This is currently being piloted.

"An elearning tool supports ongoing training and link staff are being identified within the Trust to train new staff within the area. Training on the system and its use is part of medical staff induction. We are now looking towards directorates and specialties having ownership of the system for future sustainability."