Blackpool extends Hospital at Night

Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has extended its use of Nervecentre’s Hospital at Night.

The system was piloted in a six month trial for management of the acute response team on medical wards, and implemented across all wards for management of portering requests.

The extension means it will include hospital-wide management of the acute response team, which provides out of hours cover, hospital-wide mobile handover and management of patient referrals for more than 90 specialities.

Dr Victoria Ellarby, director of Blackpool’s vision programme, said the project will have a direct impact on two of the trust’s key strategies: zero delays and zero harm.

“Our acute response team and portering services have demonstrated improved responsiveness, we have additional levels of audit and governance and mobile working has increased staff efficiency,” she said.

“By extending the use of Nervecentre to standardise other clinical and operational processes and to provide real-time visibility of the hospital’s activities, we believe that we will provide a safer, higher quality, more consistent service for our patients.”

The Nervecentre system was developed at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, which was a pioneer in finding new ways of running the hospital at night, in response to pressures such as the European Working Time Directive, which reduced the number of junior doctors available to cover shifts 24-hours a day.

The system is now deployed in several NHS trusts. Blackpool’s clinical change facilitator, Andrew Goacher, said it has changed the way the trust worked.

“During out-of-hours periods before Nervecentre, wards would request attention for a patient from the acute response team using a pager and landline system,” he said.

“Allocation of tasks was managed manually; junior doctors maintained their own paper-based list; requests for attention could get delayed and passed between shifts, or even missed altogether.

“By giving our team the appropriate tools we have driven down response times, reduced the potential for untoward incidents and are able to ensure that incomplete tasks are appropriately escalated.”