Heartbeat: Safety huddles are platform to share concerns
August 4, 2021
Daily safety huddles are encouraging colleagues to work collectively to provide solutions to issues related to harm in the women’s and child health group.
The group have largely led the way in adopting safety huddles with gynaecology and paediatrics being among the early adopters since November last year.
Tracy Weston, Matron for Gynae/Gynaeoncology told us: “We have really embraced the daily huddles on D21 and D25; which we plan around our service needs. For example, on D25 we host huddles twice a day at 7.30am and 8pm respectively, to ensure that the safety elements are briefed at the start and end of each shift. It is a completely multidisciplinary team approach which sees us share any concerns and work up solutions collectively.”
In paediatrics, daily safety huddles are in full swing and are supported by weekly 30min huddles when the multidisciplinary team review progress and outcomes.
Once the identified outcome is achieved, the multidisciplinary team agree the next safety element to work on. Since the launch of the weekly huddles in May, Lyndon Ground, Lyndon 1 and CECU have made significant improvements on their identified safety element i.e. total head circumference measured within 24 hrs of admission against total admissions for patients under two years of age.
Dr Meena Bandhakavi, Consultant Paediatrician and Governance Lead for Paediatrics, has been proactively encouraging all multidisciplinary teams in the directorate to utilise the safety huddles dashboard which generates data from Unity. She told Heartbeat: “The data is displayed in a user-friendly way which helps colleagues to understand how they are doing. We are also working with the performance and insight department (which develops the dashboard), to continuously improve the data quality.”
Bren Taylor, Acute Paediatric Matron is delighted with her team’s achievements, she said: “I am delighted with what we have been able to achieve so far. I am now keen on exploring the feasibility of having a single platform with access to all the essential data which I believe would further benefit improvements on safety and quality.”
Maternity has also embarked on the safety huddle journey. The team on the delivery suite have joined forces with regional partners to host a daily huddle (in addition to their own) – focused on regional capacity. Meanwhile, delivery suite along with M1, M2, neonatal and serenity are taking an integrated approach to running their huddles, ensuring any issues raised are aligned to service delivery, quality, safety and effectiveness.