The Patient Safety Learning Awards Scheme – Update and next steps
This year we have launched our first ever Patient Safety Learning awards scheme.
The submission deadline closed on 30th June and we’re delighted to say that we’ve had many fantastic and innovative submissions. We have now finalised the judging process and I’m pleased to share some more information about the next steps with you here.
The judging process will be fully independent of the Patient Safety Learning team and we’re delighted to confirm that our 3 independent judges are Peter Walsh, Joanne Hughes and Jo Habben. You can read more about our judges below.
A judging day has been organised for early August.
There are 3 awards categories:
1. Patient safety improvement projects linked to reporting systems and investigations of patient safety incidents, events, near misses and examples of good practice.
2. Engaging patients and their families in safety improvement initiatives (this award is sponsored by Action against Medical Accidents (AvMA).
3. Improving the environment in which staff are able to raise and address safety concerns.
The judges will assess each entry against the following criteria:
1. Innovation – is the submission something new and innovative?
2. Impact – has the submission made a demonstrable difference in changing culture, the experience of staff and patients/families and improving patient safety?
3. Transferability – is this something other organisations could learn from and replicate?
A winner and a runner up will be selected in each category. Winning submissions will receive a cash sum of £2000 and runners up will be awarded £1000.
If you are a winner or a runner up, we’ll let you know by 24th August. We’ll be asking all the winners to give a 5 minute talk about their submission at the conference (subject to availability to attend).
All winners and runners up will be given 2 free tickets to our conference, where we’ll present the awards.
Of course, we hope that our awards scheme will provide valued recognition of the excellent work that individuals and organisations are doing to improve patient safety but crucially, we’ll also be sharing the winning submissions so that others can learn from the work.
A big thank you to everyone who made a submission and wishing everyone who entered the very best of luck!
If you weren’t able to submit an awards application this year, we’ll be repeating the scheme next year. Please also have a look at our conference programme on 26th September – there is still plenty of time to register for a ticket. For full details including our speakers, please click here.
Our Judges
Peter Walsh
Peter is the Chief Executive of Action against Medical Accidents (AvMA) - the charity for patient safety and justice. As well as overseeing the charity's own services for injured patients and their families, Peter often speaks and writes on the subject of patient safety and access to justice for patients and heads AvMA's policy and campaigning work. Amongst other things, AvMA led the campaign for a statutory duty of candour, was a core participant in the Mid Staffordshire Public Inquiry and Peter was an advisor to Don Berwick’s review of patient safety in England. Currently, Peter is also a 'Patients for Patient Safety Champion’ with the World Health Organisation and a member of the family engagement steering group contributing to the Learning from Deaths programme.
Joanne Hughes
Joanne's daughter Jasmine died in February 2011 following failures in her care. Since then Joanne has been heavily involved with patient safety initiatives wherever possible. These have included initiatives for improving the identification of the deteriorating child, and those for reducing harm from medication errors. Most recently, Joanne has been part of the steering group for developing the Learning from Deaths Guidance for NHS trusts on working with bereaved families after the death of a patient in their care.
Joanne has spoken of her experiences and insights at conferences held by the RCPCH, and RSM. She is a member of the National Patient Safety Response Advisory Panel.
Joanne has a website www.mothersinstinct.co.uk, aimed at sharing information with both families and the NHS to improve patient safety for children and care of the avoidably bereaved.
Jo Habben
Jo has been a qualified registered general nurse (RGN) and mental health nurse (RMN) for over 30 years. Her career has spanned many varied fields of nursing including surgical nursing, mental health substance use and toxicology, emergency care (A&E) and medical jurisprudence and offender health.
Jo worked as a toxicology nurse specialist in both A&E and for Sussex Police and has held senior nursing roles as both a hospital Modern Matron and Quality and Patient Safety Lead with both NHS providers and Clinical Commissioning Groups as well as the Lead Clinician for Quality and Compliance for South East Coast Ambulance NHS Foundation Trust. Jo is currently the Head of Clinical Governance and Patient Safety for Western Sussex Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and is a founding cohort member of the Health Foundation Q.
Jo is experienced in conducting detailed clinical forensic physical examinations and assessments and providing both forensic samples and professional and expert reports for Court. Jo is an expert witness for litigation, representing either claimant or defendant when a breach of duty is alleged, and providing detailed reports for court. Jo investigates serious incidents and teaches Root Cause Analysis and Duty of Candour.