Walsall reduces paperwork by 80 per cent

Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust has reviewed and streamlined existing paperwork and patient records following months of work to try and reduce the burden on frontline staff.

All forms have been brought up to date and the trust has also run a project to ensure medical notes are fit for purpose.

The Trust has introduced an agreed standard of completion with a ‘Date it. Sign it. Time it’ initiative, highlighting the need to complete documentation legibly with a clear date, time and signature for each entry into the notes.

Karen Rawlings, senior sister on wards 15 and 16 at Walsall Manor Hospital said: “The new system is a lot better for staff and ensures that patients being transferred from one ward to another can feel confident that their records are consistent.  It also means that nurses’ time has been freed up with a reduction in the amount of documentation to be completed.”

Kathryn Halford, associate director of nursing at the trust said: “This project has taken months to plan with all of the hospital paperwork being updated and streamlined.

“All of our patient records should be accurate, complete, easy to use and support the delivery of safe, high quality and integrated care and these new streamlined documents will help us achieve these aims.”

In April 2014 the first wave of new patient records will be transferred to Lorenzo, the new patient administration system and it is expected that by the end of 2014 the remainder of the recording system will be transferred.