The Allocate Software awards are designed to recognise excellence and innovation across a user community of over 250 NHS organisations. Now in their third year, the awards celebrate the achievements of Trusts that have been working with Allocate Software to make improvements that ultimately mean better care for patients. The winners and runners-up of the Allocate Awards 2014 were selected by an independent judging panel of four leading figures in healthcare; Jenni Middleton, Editor, Nursing Times; David Foster, Deputy Director of Nursing, Department of Health; Lyn McIntyre MBE, Deputy Nurse Director, Patient Experience, NHS England and Professor Elizabeth Robb, Chief Executive, The Florence Nightingale Foundation
The awards ceremony took place during the gala dinner at the Annual Allocate User Group Conference at Birmingham’s’ ICC in November 2014.
Award for Improving Care & Patient Safety through Technology:Winner: Kettering General Hospital NHS Foundation Trust Linda Cottenham, Clare Culpin and Leanne Hackshall from Kettering General Hospital NHS Foundation Trust leveraged HealthAssure to improve the number and quality of audits, to publish key quality and outcome data for staff and patients and had used the software to really monitor risk and improvements to patient safety and experience. |
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Award for Collaborative Working
The team collaborated with the Immunisation team and used HealthRoster as a key tool in ensuring a new service that aims to vaccinate 97,000 children within schools, is staffed effectively and safely. The team took time to understand the different needs of the Immunisation team from recruitment to rostering. Children within the county are now receiving nasal flu vaccines within school, rather than having to go to a health centre or GP practice; this has resulted in more children receiving their vaccinations.
Julie Knowles, Hayley Allen, Usha Dean, Marcia Hylton, Karen Legerton and Patrick McCrossan are a team that just over 12 months ago were managing the acquisition of another Trust that almost doubled their employees. The judges wanted to not only acknowledge the complexity of the roster project but more importantly how the team focused on measuring the success with improved roster approval from 2% to 51% in just three months. Working with roster managers has seen a fall in additional duties by 549 in a month period. |
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The Allocate Innovation Award
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Award for Staff EngagementWinner: Kent Community Health NHS Trust Jane Burgess and Vicki Stevens employed a detailed staff engagement programme to encourage staff to understand and consider the new CQC domains. They used HealthAssure as part of its approach to allow staff to self-assess against the standards, prompting then to really own quality. The tools and training they developed are too numerous to list here but 100% found the training provided by the SAT useful and the Trust achieved a good rating in the recent inspection.
This organisation have achieved significant benefits quickly from HealthRoster despite having a very reluctant workforce, in particular in areas like A&E at the start of the project. The team created a full, visible engagement programme including feedback mechanisms focusing on staff needs. The result are key achievements in safer staffing, happier staff and staffing within allocated budget in areas like Accident and Emergency – that was renounced to be the ‘biggest’ spenders in the hospital – now recognised as the ’biggest’ savers. |
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Award for Striking the balance between savings & safety
The team has responded to staff shortages by developing a “Starting Out” programme to provide clinical areas with a newly qualified member of staff to fill short term vacancies that are otherwise difficult to fill whilst affording the nurse an opportunity to complete a period of preceptorship. This approach provides greater continuity of care, which is highly valued by service users and staff, as opposed to the transitory arrangements of temporary staffing solutions. Since Feb 2013 £80,100 has been saved by providing RMNP via bank instead of regular bank RMN and £488,610 would have been the additional cost if all those shifts were covered by agency. |
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Award for bringing the patient to the centre of workforce planning & delivery
Combining technology with an innovative workforce strategy they are using HealthRoster, BankStaff and now SafeCare alongside a responsive workforce model within a Community Trust environment. Taking into consideration the highly complex rosters of diverse and integrated staff groups across different locations, they have a highly flexible service that allows them to move around in response to service need. |
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Award for Improving Working Lives Through Technology
Like many, this clinical department has used e-Rostering to support a fairer and more timely creation of off duty. What stood out in the entry was the engagement and focus by the matrons in the department to ensure all staff benefited and the metrics used to measure impact. The results have not only been tangible time savings of the equivalent of 1.2 WTE of a sister’s time in a single year but also improved staff satisfaction and at the same time decreased complaints and increased compliments in the department. |
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Award for Outstanding Contribution by an Individual
A nurse whose personal circumstances found her in a managerial role managing a rostering project. Nominated by her colleagues, the judges couldn’t help be inspired by her story and the words used to describe her achievements in engaging staff and delivering a project against adversity. Describing the impact they said ‘Biggest impact is patient safety, continuity of care, governance compliance, staff utilisation and European Working Time compliance’ |
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Project Team of the Year Award
This teams achievements were recognised via an internal audit on the Nursing and HCA Bank, the audit report gave ‘significant assurance’ on processes and systems used by the bank service and the Allocate system and recommended that all other bank staff groups should be transferred to the Allocate system and managed by the team. During the past 9 months the team has been implementing all other staff groups onto the Allocate system. The reputation of the team has been acknowledged at Executive level, and in April of this year the team were given responsibility for the implementation and subsequent management of the E Rostering system . The team now have responsibility for 3 live projects. The implementation of E Rostering has been secured within the team to ensure the learning is retained.
Highly Commended: Kettering NHS Foundation Trust This team that demonstrated how it took clinical improvement objectives and allowed itself to work together to consider fresh ideas and uses for HealthAssure to help monitor related measures. What stood out was how they first considered whether the ‘paper processes’ were suitable for technology
This team comprised of Caroline Raby, Simon Jones, Kate Nolan, Ian Lewis Acting, Owen Sparke and Jenny Smart is genuinely high performing. They are highly commended for the sheer volume of successful achievements they have made rolling out, and crucially delivering benefits from HealthRoster, CAM, SafeCare. They have engaged medics and matrons and are around the first in the country to move to paperless rosters |
Click here to see 2013 winners
Visit the Allocate Awards 2015 page
