The Health Service Journal Patient Safety Awards were held on Monday 24 October and form part of the annual two-day patient safety congress. They provide an opportunity to recognise the outstanding contributions to patient safety throughout the NHS – whilst the congress presents a chance for health professionals to network and share best practice.
Four projects from Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (CWP) were shortlisted for awards across five categories. One of them, aiming to improve care for patients with a personality disorder diagnosis, won the award in the Service User Engagement and co-production category.
The project aims to provide additional training for mental health rehabilitation staff in caring for people with a personality disorder diagnosis. Conducted by a clinician and a CWP volunteer, with lived experience of the condition, the training was shaped by service users before it was delivered to staff to help develop their skills. The project was also shortlisted in the Patient Safety Education and Training.
Project lead, CWP lived experience volunteer Joe Gavin said: “It was only maybe 16-18 months ago that we started to work together on the inequalities that people with a personality disorder diagnosis face, something I personally experienced. It was a massive challenge but something I feel so honoured to be part of and to have had such a fabulous team
“Thank you to Samantha Woodley, clinical psychologist, for working together and creating something truly co-produced and co-designed. The benefits this has for our staff and their increased knowledge of the service user experience can only be a good thing.”
CWP was also highly commended for developing an innovative new Dynamic Support Tool which is used to identify people with a learning disability who are at risk of premature mortality or preventable death. By using the tool, staff are able to act on this identification and provide treatment to reduce this risk.
CWP chief executive, Tim Welch said: “On behalf of the Trust, I want to say congratulations to all of our teams who were shortlisted at the Patient Safety Awards. Keeping people in our care safe is at the heart of our values and we are constantly striving to improve people’s experiences. As chief executive, it makes me tremendously proud that work being done here in Cheshire and Wirral is leading the way.
“Special congratulations must go to Joe and Samantha and their work on training people in inpatient settings to improve the experiences of people with a personality disorder diagnosis. It is especially gratifying to see that the project was shaped by people accessing our services as it is essential that we listen and learn from local people to continuously strive to improve.”
