University Hospital of North Staffordshire NHS Trust delivers first class patient service with Datix Patient Safety software
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The University Hospital of North Staffordshire NHS Trust provides a full range of district hospital services to the local population of around 470,000 and specialised acute services to three million in its local area, neighbouring counties and Wales.

The hospital is a recognised trauma centre and many emergency patients are brought from a wide area by both helicopter and land ambulance.

As with all NHS organisations, the Trust places great importance on efficient administration and management to ensure the best patient care and services. The management of incidents, complaints and claims, together with maintaining high standards are all critical to the hospital’s services. The Trust has recently invested in the Datix patient safety and risk management software application to support the work of the Clinical Governance, Audit and Risk Department in maintaining the highest standards of safety for patients, staff and visitors.

Claire Rylands, Development Manager within the Clinical Governance, Audit and Risk Department at the Trust said, “We required one centralised system to record information from all the different aspects covered by the department – handling claims, complaints, health and safety and governance information.

“Datix provides the functionality and features that we want. It has all of the modules that we need to bring the departmental information together and we can link files from different areas to allow us to use the information more intelligently. The reporting facilities are very impressive and have been key to our team’s operations.”

The Datix solution was selected from competitive products for its proven reputation and use within other NHS Trusts. The solution also enabled electronic reporting on the web – a key feature for the team, enabling access across the Trust. Ward managers are able to use the web portal to report incidents, complaints and other events.

This saves time over paper based systems and frees up valuable management resources to provide improved patient care. The ward managers have also started to produce reports and analysis of their own data at local area level, which are discussed at managers’ meetings.

Extensive reporting

The Trust is making extensive use of the reporting facilities within Datix. The department has implemented key modules to assist in this:

• Incident Reporting
• Risk Register and Assurance Framework
• Complaints Handling
• Standards
• Inquests

Drawing information from one central source, the department produces a Corporate Patient Safety and Quality Report that includes data collected from adverse incidents, claims, complaints, inquests and Freedom of Information requests.

“The flexibility and ease of use of the reporting functionality have been invaluable. We are also able to take data from the Corporate Patient Safety Report and produce reports for each of the clinical divisions,” said Claire Rylands. “We also produce a suite of reports for the Statutory Standing Committee that includes information on medication incidents for the safe medications group.”

The reports enable different departments to spot trends, evaluating what has prompted an incident and what can be changed to prevent it happening again. Incident summary reports are also produced for the Blood Transfusion Committee, the Infections Control Committee and Child Protection Committee.

Managing corporate risk

The Trust also uses the Datix solution to produce a Corporate Assurance Framework Report. Using the advanced functionality within Datix, the team produces a monthly exception report from the Risk Register module of all corporate risks aligned to the updated action plan also, by integrating information from incidents, complaints and claims.

The Datix Risk Register and Assurance Framework enable The Trust to prioritise corporate risk at the highest level, as well as manage key tasks and actions that need to be undertaken.

“Previously the Risk Register was a Word document with 400 pages and we were only able to update it every six months, because of the administration burden. Now we can present it quarterly in much less time, plus it can be produced and distributed electronically,” explained Claire Ryland.

The team is also using a scanner to scan and import signed documents, either by patients or workers, enabling the organisation to support its objective of operating a paperless records system wherever possible.

Rapid response

Another of the key benefits of the Datix solution has been the ability to flag new events with a certain risk score, including incidents, complaints, claims and inquests. The team holds daily morning meetings that identify potential connections at the earliest opportunity to enable managed action.

The Datix Standards module has also enabled the team to gather and record information to meet NHS assessments criteria more easily. Each division is able to log the evidence themselves, resulting in a more comprehensive record.

“We have been really pleased with the success of Datix. Since adopting Datix enterprise-wide, we now have over a thousand users, as well as those using the web application. Datix touches a large number of staff and is now integral to our operations – we couldn’t do without it,” said Claire Ryland.

About University Hospital of North Staffordshire NHS Trust

The University Hospital of North Staffordshire provides a full range of district hospital services to the local North Staffordshire population of around 470,000 and specialised acute services to a population of some three million in our local area, neighbouring counties and Wales.

Its specialised services include cancer, cardiothoracic surgery, neurology and neurosurgery, renal, neonatal intensive care and paediatric intensive care. It is also recognised for its particular expertise in respiratory conditions, spinal surgery, upper gastrointestinal surgery, complex orthopaedic surgery, cancer and laparoscopic surgery, and the management of liver conditions.

The hospital is a recognised trauma centre and many emergency patients are brought from a wide area by both helicopter and land ambulance. The hospital also operates the Guy Hilton Research Centre, conducting medical research in partnership with North Staffordshire Combined Healthcare NHS Trust and Keele University.