West Middlesex Hospital staff win at educational excellence awards

West Middlesex University Hospital have come away with two wins and a ‘highly commended’ at Health Education North West London’s (HENWL) first ever awards ceremony held on Monday 29 June.

The awards celebrate students and staff from all areas of work within NHS care and education across North West London who have contributed to excellence in training and education, recognising those who have contributed to raising care standards locally.

West Middlesex Hospital had representatives nominated in three of the 11 categories, walking away with two wins and a ‘highly commended’ award:

Outstanding Learner Contribution to Patient Care: Winner - Georgie Gould, postgraduate medical student

Georgie Gould is a postgraduate medical student in her final year at Barts and The London Medical School. She was nominated by Joanna Girling, Consultant Obstetrician and Gynaecologist who said: “It is unusual for a medical student to have the motivation, enthusiasm, and ability to complete a project and present it nationally in such a short time frame.”

During a five week placement at West Middlesex’s Maternity Unit, Georgie undertook a challenging project on high risk obstetrics which she completed and presented to the department, and subsequently to a leading UK obstetric conference. From Georgie’s findings, she was able to make an impressive contribution to the department.

A HENWL Awards judge said: “Georgie has an obvious passion for this speciality and has clearly demonstrated engagement with research for the benefit of the pregnant woman, which has resulted in changes in practice and an enhanced experience for the pregnant woman. Very well done.”

On winning the award, Georgie said: “I am absolutely delighted to have won and I owe huge thanks to the consultants who supervised my placement and in particular, Joanna Girling who nominated me. The team created an incredibly supportive learning environment and I really enjoyed working with them on my placenta praevia project which was then accepted at the British Maternal and Fetal Medicine Society conference. I'm thrilled that it has now led to an update in the patient information leaflet and hope that this helps to better inform those who need it.”

Network-wide innovatory education between Primary and Secondary Care sectors: Winner - Perinatal Mental Health Community Education Provider Network

This Perinatal Mental Health project is a collaborative project delivered by West Middlesex University Hospital, West London Mental Health NHS Trust and Hounslow Clinical Commissioning Group. Its aim is to engage women of childbearing age with health services, facilitating informed and planned reproductive choices as well as enabling early access to perinatal (the period immediately before and after birth) mental health services when needed. The PNMH CEPN interacted with over 800 health care professionals during its first nine months. 

A HENWL Awards judge said: “This is an excellent example of network wide innovation between secondary and primary care.”

Miss Louise Page shared the team’s delight at winning the award: “We are thrilled to have the work of the PNMH CEPN recognised with this HENWL award. The success of the project has been due to the collaboration between different specialities in both primary and secondary care, which will have a long standing positive impact on the care we offer women and their families.” 

Best example of Inter-professional Learning in Secondary Care: Highly Commended - HEADS-UP programme

West Middlesex’s HEADS-UP team received the Highly Commended award for their scheme, launched in December 2013, to improve patient care and staff experience.

HEADS-UP is an innovative daily safety debriefing for interdisciplinary staff on medical wards. Teams use it to discuss any challenges they have experienced, decide if anything can be done immediately to address them, and if not, record and escalate them. Staff participating in the programme reported safer care and better teamwork and the programme identified important clinical teaching topics for them. HEADS-UP has also improved the timeliness of patients’ discharges.

HEADS-UP has already been praised by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) who described it as “innovative” and “outstanding practice” - using HEADS-UP, the hospital is “good at keeping its medical patients safe.” The HENWL judges said it is an “excellent example and should be widely shared across North West London.”

Dr Sam Pannick, one of the programme leads, said: “It is really good to get this recognition from a regional body. It recognises the hard work of all the different professionals who have contributed to HEADS-UP so far. We were particularly pleased that the judges recommended that it be shared across the region, showing how West Mid is leading the way in this sector.”