Heartbeat: Putting safety first
April 26, 2021
We all play a part to ensure safety is a vital part of work culture. Since December 2020, the Trust has introduced new short multidisciplinary meetings, held at a predictable time and place, focused on reducing harm.
We caught up with Liam Preece and Sophia Gaddu from the improvement team who told us about how they’ve been working with areas to introduce safety huddles.
Sophia explained: “The safety huddles are an opportunity for teams to get together and raise any issues, share news and find solutions to any problems at the start of the day. The teams that have started holding safety huddles have found having those conversations early on enables effective planning and generally helps shifts get off to a good start.
“Safety huddles have lots of positive benefits, but one of the main ones to highlight is enabling better commutation between nursing and medical colleagues and helping teams to find collaborative solutions to any issues that may arise.”
Sophia added: “Safety huddles are usually led by either a consultant or ward manager. Representatives from the nursing staff, HCAs, therapies and pharmacy should also attend where possible. Other team members are welcome to join depending on the issues discussed.”
For any team unsure about how to get started, Liam had one top tip, “Jump right in and get started. At first, it may seem like a daunting task pulling everyone together at the start of the shift to have a conversation, but it doesn’t have to be. We’ve been working with the team on Lyndon Ground, and they have successfully implemented safety huddles.”
Avnash Nanra, Ward Manager from Paediatrics, told us: “At first we were concerned that the huddle might take us away from tasks we need to do, but we have found it is a great way to let the whole team know about any issues quickly. It also helps us to find ways of overcoming any problems together as a team.”
So how do the team structure their huddles? Avnash explained: “We use a template, provided by the Trust to write down the discussion points beforehand and use that as a guide us in our huddles. It’s easy to set up and, a daily huddle should last between 10-15 minutes, that’s all.”
“I’ve found the huddles to be particularly beneficial. There was a safeguarding concern a few weeks ago in regards to one of our inpatients. We used the huddle to quickly discuss the issue with the team and plan how we were going to address the safety risk to the patient and other stakeholders.”
Avnash added: “We cover a range of issues including capacity, safeguarding and IT problems. For example, last week, we had an IT issue, and we used the huddle to make sure everyone was aware of it and that it flagged with Informatics.”
Deputy Medical Director, Dr Chizo Agwu, previously said: “Safety huddles increase safety awareness among front-line staff, allow teams to develop action plans to address identified safety issues and foster a culture of safety. They are a well-established form of huddle across many organisations and, we intend that they are part of normal care across our organisation by spring 2021.”