News

Wednesday 26 October 2011

East of England Ambulances East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust is using Datix patient safety software to manage incidents and complaints during a period of consolidation and to support the organisation’s mission to be the recognised leader in emergency, urgent and out of hospital care in the region. Since deploying Datix the Trust, which covers an area of 7,500 miles and attends more than half a million emergency calls every year, has increased overall incident reporting and has recently implemented an option via its call centre that provides staff and community volunteers with a single point of contact to report incidents, near misses and safeguarding issues.

In 2006, three separate NHS organisations were consolidated to create the East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust, set up to streamline processes and deliver consistent levels of emergency services to patients. Following a full evaluation of the market place the Trust purchased the Datix web-based solution to improve access to data stored in a single system by all parts of the organisation. The project initially focused on delivering incident management functionality to 4,000 staff.

East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust now has a robust technology framework that effectively manages all parts of the patient safety process from incidents, complaints, actions, contacts and equipment used within a user-friendly, and highly visual dashboard environment.

Using Datix, the Trust has also introduced an innovative way to record and manage incidents. In addition, it has recently added access to Datix via the internal call centre that provides the Trust’s 4,000 permanent staff and several thousand additional community first responders and volunteers with a single point of contact to report incidents if they do not have access to a computer and for ambulance crews while on the road.

East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust anticipates that the introduction of the call centre option, together with more consistent ways of reporting through the Datix Dashboard, will encourage incident reporting which in turn will help the Trust’s continual drive to improve services to patients.

Dean Ayres, Implementation Manager at East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust said, “The speed at which Datix can identify a trend is a real benefit and contributes to a safer environment for patients. Senior management now have accurate and up-to-date information at their fingertips to drill down to the root of problems quickly and so minimise their impact and any risk to the organisation.”

Jonathan Hazan, CEO of Datix, concluded, “With a wealth of experience offering robust patient safety solutions to the NHS, Datix has a deep understanding of the challenges faced by organisations like East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust. We can therefore deliver innovative technology to support periods of transition and change. We look forward to working with the Trust to drive innovation that meets the needs of management, staff, their volunteers and the community at large.”

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About East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust?

Established in July 2006, East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust covers the six counties which make up the region – Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk. The diverse area is spread over 7,500 miles and contains a mix of rural, coastal and urban areas. Services are tailored to meet the needs of each community’s differing environmental and medical requirements.

East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust attends more than half a million emergency calls every year and transports nearly twice that many patients to and from routine hospital appointments. As an organisation, the Trust is proud of its reputation for providing an excellent service to patients and aims to be the recognised leader in emergency, urgent and out of hospital care in the region.

For more information on East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust, please visit www.eastamb.nhs.uk

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