Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health NHS Trust (BEH) has rolled out quality improvement digital technology Perfect Ward to the trust’s community health services in Enfield.
The trust already uses Perfect Ward to transform the way it measures quality, by creating a Good Governance structure which is used across its mental health facilities. The automated solution is used by 45 teams, with over 300 staff using their mobile devices to conduct 13 quality audits.
The success of that initial introduction has now led to the trust expanding Perfect Ward’s use to encompass some 128,000 patients who largely receive care at home or local clinics in Enfield.
Caroline Sweeney, deputy director of nursing – quality governance at BEH, said: “This latest development is part of our overall plan to integrate mental and physical health services to provide a better, more holistic level of care.
“An ambitious goal like this requires an equally sophisticated tool to bring together our patient safety incident, auditing and patient experience survey results all in one place. Perfect Ward has already proved its worth in supporting Good Governance, combining consistent processes with a cohesive view of all quality activities in a single solution, the basis of a robust QI framework that guarantees continuous improvements in patient care.”
The expanded roll-out means community teams are able to carry out their own audits. Users receive instant feedback which means they can respond to it swiftly and track their performance in real-time. The system is helping to reduce the number of hours that staff typically spend auditing, which frees them up to devote more time to their patients, and helps boost staff morale.
BEH is not alone in recognising the benefits of Perfect Ward. It was recently rolled out to Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, in order to improve its maternity care pathway. Its functionality means users can reconfigure the contents and questions to meet their specific requirements. It also has the ability to save audits, allowing staff to return to them for editing or review at a later date.
Alan Birch, chief commercial officer at Perfect Ward added: “Our highly customisable technology combines intuitiveness with flexible configurability to transform the way organisations like BEH effectively measure quality across their large, complex and diverse organisations….What is more our technology is widely recognised as a valuable strategic tool. With access to dynamic data, NHS Trusts such as BEH are empowered to contribute to National programmes including the Mental Health Act or meet the unique challenges of a global pandemic amid a rapidly changing healthcare landscape.”
BEH now plans to expand the Perfect Ward solution even further by including more community teams in its use in the near future.