Quality Awards winners announced

Congratulations to the winners of the latest round of the Trust's quarterly awards scheme to recognise the contributions that individuals or teams of staff make to improving the quality of patient care and the patient experience.

The Council of Governors Quality Awards are supported by our Foundation Trust Governors who are elected by patients, members of the public and staff.

Thanks to their support, team winners receive £250 and individual winners receive £100.

Team winners

SWiSH team (John Hunter Clinic)

Photo: SWiSH team with Melvyn Jeremiah (Public Governor—centre) and Cathy Mooney (Director of Governance—2nd right)

A team of senior nurses and health advisers—led by Kate Cook, Lee Watson and Lala Caveley—have developed and implemented SWiSH, a sexual health outreach service for sex workers run in partnership with the Terrence Higgins Trust.

It is a weekly nurse-led service in Earls Court that reaches out to sex workers who are at increased risk of sexually transmitted infections and HIV and who may not access mainstream sexual health or primary care services.

During its first year, the service saw 228 patients and diagnosed new cases of both HIV and sexually transmitted infections including herpes, syphilis and chlamydia.

It successfully targeted a hard-to-reach group of people and tackled the problem of undiagnosed infections which affect both those individuals and other people with whom they have sexual contact.

Communications Department

Photo: Communications Department with Dr Mike Anderson (Medical Director—centre) and Carol Dale (Staff Governor—2nd right)

The Communications Department—Matt Akid, Renae McBride and George Vasilopoulos—ran a staff flu vaccination internal communications campaign to address the challenge of increasing a low rate of staff vaccination.

This low rate of vaccination was a cause for concern in December 2010 when there was an increase in flu cases in London, some caused by the swine flu virus.

The Communications team worked closely with the Occupational Health Department which ran most vaccination clinics, senior nurses who vaccinated staff in wards and departments, the Emergency Planning Lead and other staff to communicate the benefits of flu vaccination to staff and to increase the number of staff vaccinated.

During the campaign—which included posters featuring clinical leaders such as the Medical Director and the Director of Infection Prevention and Control advocating vaccination—the number of staff vaccinated against flu increased from 270 in mid-December 2010 to 1,855 in late February 2011.

Individual winner

Sarah Masterson (Tissue Viability Nurse)

Photo: Sarah Masterson with Susan Maxwell (Patient Governor—left) and Cathy Mooney (right)

Sarah was nominated for her role in leading an initiative to reduce pressure ulcer incidence across the Trust.

Sarah's work included providing education for ward staff about wound assessment and reporting, establishing ownership of the challenge of reducing the number of patients with pressure ulcers among matrons and ward managers, and helping to establish a Pressure Ulcer Action Group to take issues forward.

Thanks to this initiative, pressure ulcer incidence in the Trust was almost halved in less than 12 months—from 9.29% in July 2010 to 5.05% in March 2011.

Sarah is now developing a 'care bundle' for pressure ulcers and working with colleagues to produce a library of photos of patient positioning techniques for use in staff education and on the wards.