A team of South East Coast Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (SECAmb) staff have been shortlisted as finalists in an annual prestigious national awards.
SECAmb’s Cardiac Arrest Task Force (CATF) has made the final ten in the Clinical Leadership category at this year’s Patient Safety and Care Awards.
The team will now present to a panel of judges in June before the winner is announced at the awards which take place on Tuesday 15 July at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London.
SECAmb’s CATF was formed in July 2013 to support the management of this vital area of patient care. Every month the task force reviews the management of cardiac arrests and has developed new systems aimed at improving patient outcomes.
Figures have shown an improvement in the percentage of cardiac arrest patients SECAmb treated achieving ROSC (Return of Spontaneous Circulation) from 25.3 per cent to 31.2 per cent.
SECAmb Paramedic and Quality Improvement Lead Joe Emery has led the CATF programme. He said:
The group have been busy leading a number of initiatives as part of the programme and one of the most successful outcomes for the group was to determine, and get agreed, a definition of Advanced Life Support for our crews.
It was a simple thing to do and has assisted staff in managing of cardiac arrest but crucially in a uniformed way across the Trust. Also the roll out of guidance to staff clearly sets out what was expected.”
Other work carried out by the team involved rolling out a new cardiac arrest form, which is now being used across SECAmb’s Sussex, Surrey and Kent region. The number of local refresher training sessions provided to staff has also been increased. The group has also provided non-judgemental assessments of the treatment provided to cardiac arrest patients directly to the clinical teams involved in each incident.
Feedback from staff has been extremely positive and the improved capturing of data and information is ensuring that the quality of the Trust’s clinical performance is being much more accurately recorded.
A small broader Quality Improvement Group has since been established to build on the work of the CATF with the aim of taking lessons learned and using them to good effect in other areas of clinical performance. Its first project will be to focus on the management of stroke care, closely followed by the care received by heart attack patients.
SECAmb Chief Executive Paul Sutton said:
“I’m delighted that SECAmb and the task force have been shortlisted for this award. They should be very proud of their commitment and hard work in such an important area of patient care.
It is vital that this kind of constructive support is provided and that frontline staff have the opportunity to directly influence the direction of the care the Trust provides. I am confident that the group’s work will lead to further developments in patient care across a number of clinical areas and wish the team best of luck at the awards.”
