A time to celebrate

2008 marked the 60th Anniversary of the NHS. During its lifetime, the hard work and commitment of the NHS staff, together with continuing medical progress, have helped our health service to save lives and provide quality care for millions of people. But despite its many achievements, the NHS frequently falls victim to negative publicity from the media that is all too quick to focus on its shortcomings. The HB awards aim to redress the balance by concentrating on the many shining examples of innovation, dedication and teamwork that are evident since the NHS transformation began in 1997.
      
The awards, held on 11 December at Arsenal's Emirates Stadium, covered 14 different categories from technology, procurement and transport, to security and outstanding achievement in healthcare. Companies exhibiting at the event ranged from Britspace Modular Buildings Ltd to Opsrey Deepclean and Transport for London.
    
The Awards were presented by Dr Hilary Jones of GMTV who said: “When I look at the achievements of the award winners, I feel more proud then ever of our NHS. Despite being increasingly seen as a TV luvvie, I do still practice as a GP seeing patients on a one to one basis, and I remain as aware as ever of just what a fantastic job the NHS does for the people of this country.”
    
Applauding success
The Outstanding Achievement in Healthcare was awarded to Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. The hospital has scored the highest possible rating of 'excellent' for both the quality of its services and its financial management, for the second year running. Dr Foster Intelligence Good Hospitals Guide also named it top performing trust for the second time in three years.
    
David Stone, chairman of the hospital commented: “I was delighted to accept the Outstanding Achievement in Healthcare Award on behalf of all the staff at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. We have an excellent and dedicated team who do their jobs consistently to the very best of their very considerable ability. I know they will continue to do so.”
    
The Hospital Building Award was awarded to Queens Hospital Romford. Architects Jonathan Bailey Associates helped the hospital to incorporate many energy saving measures, including an air handling plant that reclaims waste heat from the extractors, low energy consumption lighting and attenuation tanks that collect storm water prior to discharge, to avoid contamination of natural watercourses.
    
The East of England NHS Collaborative Procurement Hub, which seeks to maximise leverage and value for money for NHS Trusts in Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk, took home the Hospital Procurement Award (CPH).
    
In a recent project, the CPH’s clinical team worked with three cardiac networks within the east of England to establish a strategic sourcing group for cardiology. The group supported consolidating their pacemaker volumes to achieve lower pricing across the region. The clinicians involved were able to fully participate in the tender, and estimated annual savings achieved were £750k, without compromising individual clinical choice.

Winning examples
Taking home the Hospital Cleaning Award, sponsored by Osprey Deepclean, was County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust.
    
The Trust has set up its own Patient Environment Action Team, and among other improvements has introduced a Patient Equipment Decontamination Unit to deep clean commodes. By investing a further £345k per annum, it has increased the frequency of cleaning, and has installed washable window blinds, new floor surfaces and new steam cleaning equipment.
    
The Hospital Catering Award, sponsored by Hobart UK, was awarded to the Cornwall Healthcare Estates and Support Services (CHESS).
    
In February last year, the £3.6 million Cornwall Food Production Unit (CFPU), operated by Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust, was completed. This state of the art kitchen will further contribute to regeneration and economic sustainability as, wherever possible, meals are prepared and cooked using locally grown and sourced ingredients.
    
The CFPU now purchases 40 per cent locally produced products and 80 per cent of its food budget goes to local suppliers. The CFPU has the capacity to produce food for all 19 hospitals in Cornwall, and other healthcare establishments across the Cornish border.
    
Kingston Hospital NHS Trust won the London Travel Planning Award, sponsored by Transport for London.
    
The KHT Healthy Transport Strategy was first introduced in 2000 and has been updated to reflect changes to the hospital, both physically and in its workload profile. Whilst undertaking a difficult review of staffing levels at KHT, it was recognised that the role of Travel Plan Coordinator was not cost effective. This post was therefore removed and made an integral part of the job description of a number of responsible officers within the Estates & Facilities Directorate.
    
Relevant officers from KHT also take an active role in Travel Plan forums including the Kingston Travel Plan Network and the South West London NHS Travel Plan forum.

Getting Technical
Taking home the award for NHS Website of the Year was Healthspace (www.healthspace.nhs.uk), a secure website where patients can store their personal health information online, such as height, weight and blood pressure, and details of their doctor, dentist or other healthcare providers. It supports a range of Connecting for Health's projects including Choose & Book, the Electronic Prescription Service and the NHS Care Records Service.
    
The Telehealth Award, sponsored by Intel Health, was awarded to Somerset PCT/Bridgewater Community Hospital. For the past two years the hospital has been utilising an NHS accredited national cardiology reporting service to enhance diagnostic support to the Nurse Practitioners staffing the Minor Injury Unit. The use of this service has resulted in 70 per cent of patients being managed locally, reducing pressure on the emergency department and the ambulance service.
    
Importantly the service has enhanced diagnostic support and helped provide robust risk management, pre-empting some of Lord Darzi's recommendations on local diagnostics.
    
The Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust e-rostering system was awarded the Healthcare IT Award. The system, developed by the Trust in partnership with HR software specialist Powertec, interfaces with the ESR, and enables staff to enter shift requests directly into the system, providing tools to help managers match these to ward or department requirements.
    
The system also analyses each roster, and tracks contracted hours, absence and lost time. Extensive reporting facilities are available to ward and Trust managers who can see, according to a coloured flag, whether they’ve got too many/not enough staff and what skills they have available for each shift.
    
The IT Innovation Award, sponsored by InterSystems, was taken home by BAPEN/Southampton University Hospitals Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool – MUST.
    
Developed by The British Association for Parenteral & Enteral Nutrition by Chair Professor Marinos Elia and his team at Southampton University Hospitals, MUST is a five-step flowchart used to identify whether adults are malnourished, or at risk of becoming malnourished. It can also highlight cases where patients are at risk of obesity. The MUST programme not only allows fast and accurate identification of malnourished patients, but also identification for care plans.
    
The British Dietetic Association, the Royal College of Nursing and the Registered Nursing Home Association were also involved in the development of MUST.

Safe and Sound
Winning the Hospital Security Award was Salisbury District Hospital with its advanced access control installation. The hospital decided to remove the system of codes and key control and replace it with a modern state-of-the-art electronic access system that could provide full audit trail information and control of staff movement.
    
The XS4 locks read, receive and write information via the hospitalʼs staff ID cards. Since most access related information is kept encrypted on these cards, the wall readers are able to update and receive information from the cards at any time.
    
Clever functionality provides 90 per cent of the benefits of a fully online access control system at the cost of a stand alone system.
    
Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust was awarded the Transport Logisitics Award, sponsored by APCOA. Last year, the Trust  extended the free Medilink bus service, which runs between the Trust’s two hospitals, by working in partnership with Nottingham City Council. The Medilink bus will transport over one million passengers this financial year.
    
It is estimated that this higher service take-up will substantially reduce car use on an already congested ring road. The route now incorporates two park-and-ride sites with buses running every ten minutes between 8am and 6pm every weekday.
    
Other improvements include the continuation of discounted bus tickets, which allow staff to travel at a discounted rate on local transport. Uptake has increased from 200 to 1,000 per month, with demand currently outstripping supply.
    
‘I wanna be like you’ was the TV campaign by NHS Smokefree that won the NHS Publicity Campaign Award.
    
Research shows that, through mimicking parental behaviour, children with smoking parents are three times more likely to become smokers than those with non-smoking parents.
    
The winning TV advertising campaign, by agency Miles Calcraft Briginshaw Duffy, is set to the music of ’I wanna be like you’ from ’The Jungle Book’ movie. It starts by showing harmless examples of how young children copy their mums and dads as they go about their daily life. The film then takes a sinister turn and ends with a little girl picking up a crayon to copy her mother as she takes a drag on a cigarette.
    
Ambulance Trust of the Year, sponsored by Intergraph, was awarded to the North East Ambulance Service NHS Trust (NEAS). In the latest Healthcare Commission ratings, NEAS scores 'good' for use of resources and 'excellent' for quality of services – one of only two of the eleven reporting Ambulance Trusts to be rated this highly.
    
During 2007/08 the Service handled 1,389,660 emergency calls – up from 1,288,819 in the previous 12 months – and responded to one per cent more potentially serious or life-threatening (Category A) incidents than in 2006/07.
    
After all this success, event organisers PSE and Health Business Magazine look forward to discovering further evidence of innovation and improvement for this year’s Awards, which will be held in December. NHS Trusts will be able to enter their projects online by providing a 500-word initial entry statement for consideration.

For more information
To find out more visit www.hbawards.co.uk