The Productive Wardsback to Programme Management Office
What is Releasing Time to Care?
Releasing Time to Care -The Productive Ward focuses on improving ward processes and environments to help nurses and therapists spend more time on patient care thereby improving safety and efficiency. The Productive Ward programme empowers nurses and therapists on wards to look at how processes such as drugs rounds, ward rounds and discharges work, strip out what is stopping those processes from being better and releasing themselves from activities that prevent them from spending time on direct patient care.
Benefits:
- Gives nurses back at least 10 per cent of their time to spend on patient care.
- Creates calmer wards and reduces patient complaints
- Increases safety (shown in observation reliability scores)
- Increases morale
- Breaks down barriers between front line staff and managers and between disciplines
Why focus on the ward?
The
temptation is to look elsewhere in the hospital for sources of
improvement. Hospital wide improvement is valid but difficult to
achieve and difficult to sustain. Much can be done by ward staff to
improve their own environment without having to wait for improvements
in other departments.
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Whilst delays may be caused by other departments,
the ward can improve its own processes to smooth out delays from their
end – all contributing to an improved patient experience and fewer
frustrations for staff.
How do we know this will work?
Productive
Wards has been developed in the UK by the NHS Institute for Innovation.
Development of the series was in close collaboration with four original
test sites, 10 NHS learning partners and two whole hospital sites. As
a result, the majority of the current Productive Ward series modules
have been through three testing and refining phases. The finalised
programme reflects the wealth of learning and experiences gathered from
the test sites.
The programme is spreading rapidly throughout the UK and around the world with great success.
Further information can be found on the NHS Institute for Innovations web site www.institute.nhs.uk.
The Productive Ward consists of a range of structured modules
enabling staff to make improvements at a pace that suits the ward and
organisation. Ward teams learn simple but effective techniques that
offer dramatic results in healthcare settings and most importantly, the
staff lead and control the improvements themselves.
To develop and implement a framework for best
practice with regard to nursing and midwifery shift handover within
Health Waikato hospitals' inpatient area.
News from Productive Wards
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