Best Use of Workplace Technology
Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust & Diligram
MyStaff app
"NHS Trusts use archaic systems for managing and accessing documents. Friction within the whole process ends up slowing down staff access to critical documents needed daily. From research, it took on average 5-10 mins to access a document at Mid-South Essex NHS Trust. We worked with the MSE team and redesigned the whole eco-system from downstream (custom built mobile user interface built for ease of usage) to upstream with AI for processing improvements. The result, MyStaff app is seamless and transformative (takes seconds now) freeing up time especially useful with frontline community nurses to access frequently used policies and procedures."
NHS England
Project PETaR Mental Health App
"Our project revolutionises mental health crisis care education for nurses, midwives, AHPs, and pre registration students. With our app-based training platform using MS HoloLens, users experience immersive simulations that enhance their understanding of diverse patient care. This cutting-edge technology improves training efficiency, allowing staff to peer review, practice de-escalation techniques, and feel confident in accessing appropriate help when needed. By integrating this innovative approach, we aimed to elevate patient care and outcomes, boost staff confidence, and ensure a clearer understanding of patient needs, ultimately fostering a more skilled and responsive healthcare workforce."
Nursing, Midwifery & AHP Workforce Team, North East and Yorkshire, NHS England
Digital Skills Passport for Critical Care: STEP 1 Digitalisation
"Adult critical care (ACC) has a national competency framework (STEPS) which all nurses undertake. Training and assessment is paper based. A small national pilot of the digital version occurred in 2022 with limited traction. North East and Yorkshire (NEY) only six out of 21 providers had digital access. Digitalisation increases transparency, ease and speed of assessment thus positively impacting patient care. Working collaboratively between multiple agencies; Provider trusts, ACC networkers, professional bodies, this initiative delivered over three months, during winter pressures and industrial action, at minimum cost (£8,000), was the first ever to digitalise an entire regions 32 ACC Units. "
NHS Scotland & The HCSSA
A national eRostering system to support Health Boards across Scotland meet legislative duties.
"The Health and Care (Staffing) (Scotland) Act 2019 (HCSA) commenced April 2024. Health leaders recognised the benefits of a national eRostering system to support Health Boards meet their legislative duties. Allocate SafeCare was identified as the key enabling technology. Prior to national implementation, five Health Boards had independently procured eRostering, however, there was no nationally agreed configuration or approach, and variable SafeCare use. A key achievement was mapping each duty in the HCSA to a SafeCare functionality. Key deliverables comprised a national SafeCare configuration, with extensive training and reporting resources, enabling Boards to monitor, demonstrate and report on HCSA compliance. "
North Staffordshire Combined Healthcare Trust
Practice POD (Point of Discussion and Digital Evidence Tracker
"Our initiative aimed to address the inefficiencies and inaccuracies in managing student nurse assessments and the challenges faced by ethnic minority students. We developed a Digital Evidence Tracker to streamline assessment processes and Practice POD, a digital booking system using Microsoft Bookings, to facilitate easy scheduling of appointments with practice educators. Despite challenges in integrating new technologies and overcoming initial resistance, our project successfully enhanced data accuracy, provided targeted support, and improved the overall educational environment, leading to higher satisfaction rates among nursing staff and students."
Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust
Digital Remote Monitoring
"The virtual ward in Wolverhampton has evolved since its initiation, and is now working on providing acute level care at home for patients in Wolverhampton. We have utilised various ways of remote monitoring for our patients (Docobo and Luscii) to allow them to take responsibility of their condition with medical input, and have found that working closely with Luscii has allowed us to do this, now having 10+ pathways on the Luscii digital App. We have close collaborative working with a delegated Luscii representative to allow for immediate and quick alterations and updates."
Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust
Enhancing acuity scoring, reducing temporary staffing, and empowering ward leaders with Allocate SafeCare
"Many registered nurses joining, or being promoted to ward leaders, had only ever worked in an environment shaped by the COVID-19 pandemic in which staffing was managed through a very centrally controlled process. This created a knowledge gap in managing the daily deployment of staff required based on patient acuity and dependency. Many staffing decisions were escalated upwards to matrons. One of the outcomes was high temporary staff usage and increase in additional duties. With Allocate SafeCare and focused retraining at ward level we improved staffing practices, reduced reliance on temporary staff and ensured additional duties were correctly used. "
South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust
Personalised Cancer Care
"Cancer prevalence is increasing and for many people cancer is managed as a long-term condition. Current models of care are often poor at addressing the complexities of disease, creating significant challenges for the cancer workforce. This transformational project harnessed workplace technology, to ensure that the needs of patients and families were met through digital referral systems and processes, codesigned with patients to address health inequalities and support our cancer teams. Collaboration with professionals across the entire health care system was challenging but was resultant in a positive patient and staff experience and an increase in capacity for our specialist teams."
Suffolk and North East Essex Training Hub
East of England Inspire Project
"In the East of England (EoE), few general practice organisations hosted student nurses. Limited estate, limited clinical time and low educator confidence were cited as the most common barriers. Project Inspire overcame these barriers by introducing a new style of placement where the clinical learning environment was expanded into a nurturing, virtual world. This resulted in significant placement expansion whilst not increasing the workload of existing GPNs, and enabling newly qualified nurses the opportunity to discover a new career path, thereby growing and enthusing the GP nursing workforce."
University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Digital Transformation in Preceptorship: Data-Driven Actions through Enhanced Data Systems and Digital Preceptorship Workbook
"The UCLH Preceptorship Programme transformed the traditional paper-based preceptorship workbook into a digital format using Microsoft OneNote and MS Forms and enhanced it’s data management. The digital workbook facilitates real-time tracking and feedback, enabling continuous engagement between preceptors and preceptees and many more. It allows preceptees to set objectives, track meetings, and reflect on their progress, with inputs automatically collated for easy monitoring. Additionally, an Enhanced Preceptorship Spreadsheet was developed to manage and track study days, attendance, and scheduling efficiently."
Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust
The Virtual Patient Bay
"A survey of the newly qualified nurses (NQN) employed in our Trust in 2021 identified that only 29% (of 41) felt confident when prioritising patient care. To increase the support and professional development for this cohort I created a novel virtual learning tool called the “Virtual Patient Bay” This is an interactive scenario based e-learning course that enables NQNs to develop skills and confidence in prioritising patient care using a new systematic approach called “C.A.L.M”. Although this took longer than anticipated to develop, The Virtual Patient Bay was launched in May 2024 in our hospital and nationwide. "
Workforce Development Academy at Bedfordshire Luton and Milton Keynes ICB
Health Care Support Work Digital and Community (Bus) attraction campaign.
"An innovative, creative, effective, collaborative and sustainable system wide approach to HCSW recruitment through digital and social media solutions to attract our diverse population and enrich our workforce delivering safe, quality care to our patients and residents. The initiative demonstrates how system collaborative working can create innovation and solutions, resulting in successful outcomes. Our aim was to significantly reduce our HCSW vacancies by attracting and showcasing to our local communities the variety of HCSW roles available within Health, Social and Primary Care. We wanted to deliver an initiative which would be original, effective and sustainable, with future longevity and replication. "