Annual Quality Summit reaffirms Cwm Taf’s commitment to caring for people not just patients
Cwm Taf’s Annual Quality Summit focussed on work going on across the health board to share good practice, learn from mistakes and improve people’s experience of healthcare services.
The Summit, in its second year, was held at Prince Charles Hospital on October 20th and was live-linked to the Royal Glamorgan Hospital.
Projects showcased included the Don’t Just Wait…Motivate initiative from the physiotherapy team, led by Kelly Bevan, which has reduced long waiting lists and created a website to help people manage their own conditions.
The mental health care home support team was highlighted for its work in providing training in dementia care for staff, which has reduced admissions to mental health units and reduced challenging behaviour. The initiative aims to increase care home staff’s understanding of dementia and improve residents’ quality of life by providing sensory stimulation, reminiscence tools and individual playlists of their favourite music.
“To achieve an understanding of a person’s needs you need to understand a person’s life, what they did, what they cared about and what they liked,” said mental health nurse practitioner Davida Watkins.
The success of the Health board’s I-Care initiative was praised as a key tool for engaging staff in the Cwm Taf Caresphilosophy through the corporate induction programme, and is due to be integrated into the nursing strategy. “Staff need to think about their own wellbeing to be effective carers of others,” said training and development co-ordinator Louise Richards.
“The feedback we have had from new staff going through their induction is that the programme has made them feel like a human being rather than just a member of staff, and we want our people to feel like they truly belong to something empowering and positive”.
Other initiatives showcased at the Summit included the Cwm Taf Joint Care programme; continence service; speech and language programme; improving access to healthcare services for those with sensory loss; CAMHS e-prescribing; the Theatres Quality and Improvement Programme and the Psychiatric Liaison Service.
“Care is treatment-plus,” said medical director Dr Kamal Asaad. “There is some fantastic quality improvement work going on across Cwm Taf and the overarching theme from all of this is that a patient is still a person and needs to be treated as such.
“It doesn’t matter what we provide – it only matters how it is received. It’s so important we continue to listen to patients, the public and our staff about their experience with us so we can continue to improve the care we provide.”
Source: Cwm Taf University Health Board
