Heartbeat: Safety huddles soon to be a part of our organisation

January 14, 2021

We all play a part to ensure safety in our work for the benefit of patients and each other as colleagues.

Over the next few months, the Trust is working to introduce new short multidisciplinary meetings, held at a predictable time and place, and focused on reducing harm.

To find out why, Heartbeat caught up with Deputy Medical Director, Dr Chizo Agwu, who told us more.

She 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.”

NHS Improvement advocates the use of ‘safety huddles’ to support effective communication at key points in the care of individuals, to improve safety.

Chizo added: “Effective safety huddles involve agreed actions, are informed by visual feedback of data and provide the opportunity to celebrate success in reducing harm.

“Huddles help clinical colleagues prioritise patient care and focus on patient safety. They provide the opportunity to discuss any safety events that have occurred, how the event happened, and how to prevent recurrences.

“There is research evidence that they improve patient safety. In one organisation so far, 6,051 falls have been prevented. Based on cost estimates from NHS Improvement, this equates to £15.7 million in avoided healthcare costs for Yorkshire and a return on investment of 107 per cent.”

Chizo is encouraging all teams to embrace safety huddles as they complement and enhance other safety measures in place and link into both the safety plan and the quality plan.

“Safety huddles are an ever more important part of how we create the conditions for outstanding care in our clinical services,” added Chizo. “They help to reinforce team working, prevent harm and improve the patient experience.”