26 March 2018

The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust will complete its first ever ‘Let’s Crack It’ fortnight from today (Monday 26 March) in a bid to improve patient journeys through our hospitals and ensure they are discharged as soon as they are medically fit to leave.

During the weeks either side of the Easter holidays the Trust will focus on working differently, testing new ideas; and with local partners such as local authorities and other community providers keep ‘patient flow’ as smooth as possible.

This means resolving any blockages in a patient’s pathway on the same day to ensure the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital and the Princess Royal Hospital in Telford do not go into the following day with any unresolved patient issues.

Some of the areas the Trust will support to make the week a success include:

  • Putting into action what we have learned from our Transforming Care work, for example ‘clinical criteria for discharge’ as part of the Respiratory Value Stream
  • Ward level standard work with multi-disciplinary teams
  • A quicker turnaround on some test results
  • Additional porters to facilitate patient moves
  • Non-clinical staff being asked to clear their diaries to help on the wards
  • Informing senior managers of anything preventing patients from being discharged through the site control room

During the ‘Let’s Crack It’ the aim is to:

  • Ensure all patients have a senior review before midday
  • Ensure all patients receive an expected discharge date within 24-hours of admission to hospital
  • Clinical criteria for discharge set for every patient
  • Discharge patients at the earliest opportunity to ensure there is at least one available bed by 9am and two by 12noon.
  • Have every ward undertaking a morning multi-disciplinary team board round-up to ensure effective discharge, with a ‘mop up’ in the afternoon
  • Eliminate unnecessary diagnostics so no-one waits longer than 24-hours for a diagnostic test

People don’t want to stay in hospital longer than they need to and any day spent in hospital without benefit is a day too many.

This will help the Trust look at what we can do differently to help improve patient experience. With the support and care needed the hospital Trust will help patients get back to where they want to be – at home.

The Trust will not be cancelling any clinical work to do this as this is part of ‘business as usual’.

This a system reset; improving our bed occupancy levels and improving patient flow.

The Trust will be measuring success throughout the week and looking at the impact of the new ways of working and any lessons learnt that can be taken forward in the future.