UTOPIA – a new model of unscheduled care
UTOPIA was a two year Trust-wide change programme (Unscheduled Treatment Of Patients In the Acute sector), to radically redesign the Trust’s unscheduled care pathway. The programme was winner of the HSJ's Efficiency Award for Efficiency in Acute Service Redesign 2011.
The programme was managed in 3 distinct phases:
- discovery
- redesign and
- transition.
The new model of care was phased in from August 2009.
The new model has delivered significant clinical, operational and financial benefits, including;
- Statistically significant reduction in acute length of stay with no impact on readmission rates or mortality.
- £6M saving by reducing Trust bed base on back of reduction in length of stay
- £1.5M saving to health economy by increasing the number of GP referred patients discharged direct from ED
- Reduction in the percentage of patients requiring Coronary Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR)
Women's Services Reconfiguration
This programme involved the reorganisation of maternity, neonatal and gynaecology services in the county. With the building of the new Women’s Centre at Gloucestershire Royal, all high-risk obstetric and neonatal services were centralised to Gloucester and a new midwife-led Birth Centre was created at Cheltenham General Hospital. The programme completed successfully in early 2011 and local women and their families are now benefiting from the new facilities and enhanced clinical care.
Take a virtual tour of the new Women's Centre at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital, the Cheltenham Birth Centre and Stroud Maternity Hospital
Contact: , Programme Manager
Rapid Improvement Events
Rapid Improvement Events (RIEs) were facilitated, five-day workshops where specific patient pathways or operational processes are mapped out, analysed and redesigned using the principles of LEAN methodology. The event itself is always part of a longer term project involving a team of people who know their area and can implement the agreed changes.
Contact: , Programme Manager
Releasing Time to Care
This programme focussed on improving processes and facilities on the hospitals’ wards so that nurses’ valuable time could be ‘released’ for the provision of direct clinical care for patients. Using tools from the NHS Institute’s Productive Ward, as well as experience from other Trusts and related programmes, the key elements were:
- Redesign of the processes for general supplies to the wards
- Redesign of the processes for IV fluid and dressings to the wards
- Standardisation and improvement of the wards’ storage systems and stock control
- De-cluttering the ward environment
Contact: , Programme Manager
Patient Wristbands
Completed in April 2010, this project rolled out the technology and training for all patients to be fitted with a printed wristband, thereby reducing the risk of error under the previous system of hand-written bands.
Contact: , Project Manager
Hospital @ Night
This project is focussed on improving the working arrangements of the specialist medical and nursing teams based in the hospitals at night, to help them provide seamless care when the day teams hand over and respond quickly to the wards when called by the nursing teams.
Contact: , Project Manager
Digital Dictation
This project is delivering a system by which letters and other correspondence dictated by doctors is stored electronically as a secure audio file. This allows secretarial teams to instantly access the file and start typing, without the need for tapes to be transported between clinics and offices. The system will soon be in use in all departments and has already cut the turn-around time for typing.
Contact: , Project Manager