Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust
Our year in review 2015/16
Review of the Year Welcome to our review of 2015/16 where we present some of our most memorable events and developments. For more details about our performance and financial information, you’ll find our Annual Report 2015/16 on our website fromJune http:// www.northamptongeneral.nhs. uk/. You can also keep up to date with NGH news by following us on Twitter @NGHNHStrust and liking our Northampton General Hospital Facebook page.
Fact 100% of patients surveyed say they would recommend our antenatal service to friends and family
02 ❘ Our year in review 2015/16
Making it easier to give feedback During the year, we made lots of improvements in response to the feedback we received from our patients taking the Family & Friends Test. From herbal tea and noiseless bin lids to doctors in white coats and sleep-well packs, we listened to what you told us and we acted on it. We also made it easier than ever to give feedback. Now, as well as feedback from SMS text messaging and automated calls, we have a suite of postcards tailored to specific departments and wards. We created an easy-read version of the feedback postcard to help our patients with a learning disability or
dementia in giving their feedback. We designed a children’s survey for our younger patients to have opportunities to give their feedback, with three different surveys available depending on the age of the child. And we’ve used QR codes make the survey available in 50 different languages. To help us collect all those postcards, we now have 70 postboxes right across the hospital.
First patient for new cancer machine Glenis Albrighton was the first patient to have radiotherapy treatment on a new linear accelerator (linac) machine to be installed as part of a £5.5 million programme to upgrade our cancer machines.
Glenis Albrighton with consultant Dr Qurrat Mehmood
Fact Our staff, patients and visitors used over 3,300 litres of alcohol hand rub during the year, helping us to fight infections and keep our patients safe
With our three existing LINAC machines all coming to end of their life at the same time and needing to be replaced, the timing was perfect for us to look at the bigger picture to see how we could improve the overall experience of our radiotherapy patients. Dr Qurrat Mehmood, consultant clinical oncologist and Mrs Albrighton’s consultant said: “This machine gives superior imaging with the facility of CT scanning, and that gives the detail in making sure the treatment that you’ve planned and designed for the patient is actually the treatment that’s being delivered with regard to the accuracy. “Our patients will benefit from having the reassurance that we’re doing more targeted treatments which should result in better cure rates, and also that we’ll be able to lower the long and short term side effects to tissue that doesn’t need radiotherapy.” With the three new machines, Northampton will be one of the most advanced centres for radiotherapy in the country, with benefits including a greater range of therapies, reduced
Fact During the year, our clinical research team recruited 1,000 patients to participate in approved research and clinical trials, helping the NHS to improve care and treatment.
side effects and improved positioning of patients - which means better accuracy in targeting cancer cells.
The new machine is housed in a purposedesigned converted building connected to the main hospital site by a new glass walkway.
Catering for a new approach Our plan to provide fresh, healthy and appetising meals saw the biggest change in our patient menus for 21 years. As well as ensuring we don’t use harmful additives or GM foods, we increased the amount of freshlyprepared food from less than 60% to over 90%. The meat we use complies with farm assurance standards, all eggs are free range and fish are chosen so they are not on the Marine Conservation Society’s fish to avoid list. As well as getting the thumbs-up from our patients, these changes saw the team shortlisted for a national food sustainability award. Catering manager Andy Head (centre) with team members (left to right) Greg Smith, Malcolm Findell, Roger McLean, Sue Wyatt
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Building on good work Our estates team had a busy year overseeing a number of projects to improve our buildings and facilities for the benefit of our patients. Improvement works in our emergency department continued during the year with the creation of a new ambulatory care centre and clinical observations unit. This means we have dedicated facilities for patients who require consultation with our emergency care specialists but aren’t unwell enough to warrant attendance at A&E. Similar facilities were previously housed in the emergency department which had capacity to treat 100 patients a month; the new centre allows us to treat up to 400 patients each month. We also opened a brand new discharge suite to help free up beds on wards and give our patients who are ready to leave hospital a comfortable place to wait while paperwork or prescriptions are processed and while they wait for their transport home. The new area, which has nursing staff, has facilities for up to 20 patients in chairs and four side rooms for patients in beds. We also moved our very busy blood taking unit into new larger premises including a special waiting area for children with toys and games. We extended its opening hours to provide an improved service for patients. Last year we saw 63,000 patients and that’s 10,000 more than the year before - so there’s no doubt the upgrade was needed to make sure our patients have a good experience.
Fact During the year, we made nearly one million cups of tea for patients, relative and visitors!
White coats are back in fashion! Last year, two out of three patients we surveyed said that they were confused about who exactly they had been speaking to – and could not be certain when they had seen a doctor. Our own junior doctors came up with the answer to the problem – bring back the white coats that all doctors used to wear. And that’s 04 ❘ Our year in review 2015/16
just what did, but at the same time updating the white coats to the modern era. The updated version of the white coat has short sleeves so staff can stay ‘bare below the elbows’ to reduce the risk of spreading infection. It has a coloured badge on the front to show the doctor’s grade and experience, and the word ‘doctor’ in big letters on the back so there can really be no mistake!
Our new white coats have short sleeves to reduce infection risks
Fact
Our volunteers, the Friends of NGH, carried 13,081 visitors around the hospital site in their fleet of buggies.
New research agreement with university During the year, we entered into a research agreement with the University of Northampton that we hope will pave the way for academic research to be put into practice and open up new opportunities for research projects to improve health and wellbeing. We signed a Memorandum of Understanding which commits both organisations to working together on biological, medical and health related research, for the benefit of people in the county and further afield.
This development paves the way for a more meaningful research alliance between our organisations and the exploration of new areas for future research. Thanks to the new agreement, university academics will have access to real-time clinical environments,
This year we marked 50 years of specialist baby care on our Gosset neonatal ward. Family and former colleagues of pioneering children’s doctor Isaac Henry “Harry” Gosset gathered to celebrate Dr Gosset’s legacy. Dr Gosset was a pioneer in neonatal care and set up one of the first premature baby units. in the UK. His invention, the icterometer – which helped to measure jaundice - undoubtedly prevented severe disability in many children.
equipment, staff and patients to apply their research findings. We’re very excited about the potential for this partnership to bring about direct improvements in patient care and safety as well as improving the overall wellbeing of our local population.
Fact
Dr Gosset
Our medical photography department photographed 3,507 patients last year. Photographic images are used to help us make a diagnosis, to monitor the progress of a patient’s condition and to support our employees’ training and education. Our year in review 2015/16 ❘ 05
Celebrating the best of Team NGH Following another record year in which we cared for more people than ever before, we had so much to celebrate and the nominations flooded in from members of the public, patients and staff for our 2015 Best Possible Care Awards - which made shortlisting the entries a very difficult task! We hold these awards to recognise our employees and volunteers who make an exceptional contribution to patient care – and they took place last year thanks to funding from the Northamptonshire Health Charitable Fund and sponsorship from Arup, Capsticks, Deloitte, HSB, and Simply Business. Our emergency department picked up a hattrick of awards, including the team of the year accolade for their proactive approach to improving patient flow and safety.
while emergency medicine consultant Dr Sarah Vince was awarded the Chief Executive’s Innovation in Practice Award.
The work of the department in supporting older patients was recognised with the Patient Safety Award for A&E’s geriatric elderly medicine team
For a full list of winners, you can read issue 57 of Insight on our website.
Who will you nominate this year? Keep an eye out for details of the nominations process of the 2016 Best Possible Care Awards.
National spotlight During the year, a number of our staff and volunteers received national acclaim for their outstanding contributions to patient care.
Brian Stone, one of our Friends of NGH volunteers, was awarded a British Empire Medal in the New Year’s Honours. Brian,
Fact Our team of porters carried out 200,000 patient transfers during the year 06 ❘ Our year in review 2015/16
aged 77, was nominated for providing more than 20 years’ service to a range of charities and organisations in Northampton including his invaluable work with the Friends of NGH, first as a guide and buggy driver, and now as a ward visitor. Macmillan lung cancer nurse specialist Lisa Wells, who has won a national award for leadership and innovation in cancer nursing - the Lynn Adams Award presented by the UK Oncology Nursing Society Consultant paediatrician Dr Andrew Williams won the WellChild Award for Best Doctor for his “exceptional contribution” to helping sick children.
Strictly NGH winners Francine Diffley and partner Jamz Sandz
Dancing the night away! A fantastic effort from all the competitors in Strictly NGH 2015 saw an amazing £16,000 raised for the Northamptonshire Health Charitable Fund. Francine Diffley, clinical specialist physiotherapist from occupational health, was our winner with her dance partner Jamz Sandz. Francine was one of six finalists who included Debbie Needham, our chief operating officer and deputy CEO, Julie Gardner from ENT, Raj Sehmi from finance, and James Wyatt and Dominic Carlisle who joined us from St Andrews Healthcare.
New badge for new nurses
Newly-qualified nurses are now presented with a commemorative daisy pin badge which they wear on their collars for their first six months in post, and then retain as a keepsake.
Fact We segregated 198 tonnes of recycling including plastics, cans metals and card
Fact During the year we invested £18.1 million improving our medical and IT equipment and our site and buildings.
Our announcement of the daisy pin badge became our most popular Facebook post ever - with over 100,000 views, 1,300 likes and a host of comments describing it as a ‘fabulous’, ‘brilliant’ or ‘cool’ idea. Launching the badge, our director of nursing Carolyn Fox said: “Newly-qualified nurses face many challenges and it’s so important that they have strong support during that crucial first six months. “The badges are a way of saying thank you to our new nurses who’ve chosen Northampton General Hospital as the start of their nursing career. They’re also a visual prompt for our other staff, patients and visitors that the nurse wearing the badge is new to practice. They’ll help us to remember how daunting a new job can be and how the little gestures can make a big difference.” So, if you see one of our nurses wearing the daisy, give them a smile and say hello!
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Figures and data are taken from our draft accounts which are correct at the time of going to press. Audited accounts and our annual report are available on our website from June 2016. 08 â?˜ Our year in review 2015/16