NHS England visit Chelsea and Westminster Hospital to hear about our innovations

We were delighted to welcome Professor Oliver Shanley OBE (Regional Chief Nurse for London) and Professor Jacqui Dunkley-Bent OBE (Head of Maternity, Children and Young People at NHS England) to Chelsea and Westminster Hospital to learn more about our nurse-led innovation projects.

Oliver Shanley and Jacqui Dunkley-Bent were given three presentations by nurses and midwives from the Trust, who were pitching for a special grant from hospital charity CW+ dedicated to supporting nurses’ and midwives’ ideas for improving patient care. These projects were shortlisted as the top three from more than 40 applications from staff. The three projects were:

• transforming the birthing pool rooms on Labour Ward
• improving oral hygiene for patients
• implementing ‘safety huddles’—short multidisciplinary briefings

Following the three Dragon’s Den-style pitches, Oliver Shanley and Jacqui Dunkley-Bent awarded first prize to Angela Chick (Kew Ward Sister) for her forward thinking oral hygiene project ‘Mouth Care’ which will now receive funding and support from CW+ to implement in our hospitals. Due to the quality of all our three finalists, they will all receive awards from CW+, along with four other shortlisted projects.

The visit also showcased two nurse-led innovation projects supported by CW+, Perfect Ward and 11 Health’s ostom-i™ Alert Sensor. Perfect Ward is a digital ward auditing innovation, replacing paper based traditional audit techniques which can save nurses up to six hours per audit. The ostom-i™ is a sensor which can be attached to a stoma bag to track usage and alert patients when it needs replacing, improving patient care and wellbeing. Both these innovations were identified through our delivery partnership with the DigitalHealth.London’s Accelerator programme which helps us to identify the latest innovative technologies to benefit our patients.

Oliver Shanley told staff: “It’s been really genuinely inspiring. In all of the presentations, the common theme was around putting the patient first, looking after each other but it went beyond that to we can make a difference in outcomes, we can make a difference in costs, in efficiency and effectiveness and that is outstanding. I don’t see that everywhere, so you should be really really proud about what you’re doing and you should really celebrate your achievements. It was an absolute pleasure to be a part of today, so thank you so much.”

Jacqui Dunkley-Bent added: “Thank you so much for inviting me to be part of this fantastic initiative. There’s some great work here and I look forward to hearing about it on the national platform.”

Chris Chaney (Chief Executive of CW+) commented: “Staff across the Trust have many excellent, truly innovative ideas which we are delighted to fund and support to help improve the care and experience for our patients. It was a pleasure to welcome Jacqui and Oliver to hear more about the transformational work we are doing with our nurses and midwives and we would like to thank them for being our ‘Dragons’ for the day.”