Take a look at last year’s winners to help you put together a winning entry

2009 Winner - NHS South of Tyne and Wear

Dignity was the focus of a specialist palliative care centre’s project to put patients and their families back at the centre of service planning and delivery.

The process brought together observation of the daily routine and invaluable insights from patient diaries.

“The diaries brought a completely new understanding of the experience of receiving care and prioritised the patient as the driver for change,” says ward sister Chris Allison.

“They described how overwhelming it can be when you feel so unwell and have a succession of visits and assessments in a short space of time. That’s been turned around and now the patients choose the structure of their day.”

Service redesign got under way with a rapid process improvement workshop. Facilitators, frameworks and tools supported the team in developing a patient centred model of care.

“All the implementation, measurements and evidenced improvements were written up and this material formed the basis of our entry,” says Ms Allison.

“When it came to presenting to the judging panel, as well as qualitative feedback from patients, I was able to talk about metrics such as the 27 per cent reduction in time in meetings.”

“The opportunity to discuss the process and outcomes, something I feel so passionately about, really brought me out of myself,” she continues.

Enter now

What judges want

  • Clearly defined objectives for quality improvement within the project
  • An understandable model for patient centred care, with clearly described interventions
  • Evidence that patients have been engaged in the project’s design, delivery and decision making
  • Robust data collection and analysis, showing measured improvements in patient care, including clinical outcomes
  • Tangible evidence that the interface between healthcare professionals and their patients had changed
  • The sustainability of these changes observed

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