Publish date: 4 June 2024
April's Employee of the Month winner is Jillian Murphy, Addictions Community (Brook Place) - Liverpool, nominated by Mark Beddows for the value of continuous improvement
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Jill in partnership with the community respiratory team led on a huge project to identify and treat hard to reach patients within the addictions service. In March 2022 Liverpool Community Respiratory Team provided Brook Place Community Drug Team with a 0.7 hrs band 7-Advanced Respiratory Nurse Practitioner. This covered 7 sessions a week, with one being for admin tasks generated by the clinic. This included discussions and referrals around COPD education, smoking cessation, pulmonary rehabilitation, encouraging vaccinations, referral for spirometry, inhaler review and technique check, self-management plans, social prescribing, respiratory specific physiotherapy, anxiety control, breathlessness management, reviewing if requires mucolytic therapies, dietetics, social services, matron review, rescue packs of steroids and antibiotics and anything the patients wanted to discuss.
We commenced work with LHCH to provide in-house spirometry for the Brook place clinic in December 2022. The positive impact that this had on our patients was astounding. These patients often feel stigmatised due to their addictions and will therefore often avoid attending hospital or doctors’ appointments and sadly as a result of this their health will naturally deteriorate. One of the more prevalent physical health issues that effects our patients is COPD due to smoking and class A drug use. By having the CRT and spirometry team at Brook Place we have been able to provide a safe and trusted environment for patients to be assessed and treated properly for COPD.
Jill led and coordinated this project from our side, her determination and motivation is the reason that it succeeded and the reason why our patients health and lives have been changed for the better. Without her organisation, hard work and dedication to what was a massive project it would not have reached the levels that it did, and she deserves full recognition for this."
April's Team of the Month winner is Old Swan Walk-in Centre nominated by Carol Gordon for the value of accountability
"The team have significantly improved patient safety and patient experience by ensuring that 90% to 100% of patients wait less than four hours. This is significant as the team are currently in business continuity with only minimum staffing levels, and an increase in patients of up to 30% on some days.
The team have implemented a new system to ensure accurate and timely record keeping with quality assurance checks and clear escalation processes. The more experienced staff have supported the junior staff to learn the new of way of working.
This has ensured that patients are not experiencing long waits and they are treated safely. The team have had to improve this over a number of weeks and have sustained it. On some days, only 70% of patients may have been within four hours. Consistently in February and March the team have seen 90% to 100% of patients within four hours against a 95% target. While experiencing staffing challenges and an increase of patients by up to 30%.
The team see on average around 115 to 120 patients per day and on some days have seen up to 154 patients per day. This improvement has resulted in the majority of patients being treated within four hours of attending the walk-in centre.
This means that patients are experiencing shorter waits and are treated in a timely way. It means that patients are safe, and any seriously ill patients are identified and treated quickly."