HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL OF YOU! IT HAS BEEN A BUSY 2019 AND I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO AN EXCITING 2020!
I wanted to say a personal thanks to all of the amazing care providers I have worked with this year.
I have had a very busy year travelling the UK meeting you all and training in wonderful care and nursing homes and hospices. I love that after 20 years in health care I am still humbled by the dedication of passionate and caring staff and seeing what a truly wonderful profession we are in. I also know the challenges we all face in the current climate and how we continue to strive nevertheless to endeavour to provide gold standard care and impairment gold standard harm prevention strategies.
I hope to continue supporting you in your pressure care journey wherever you are on the path. I call it a journey because we continue to learn and develop and there is no final destination. There are stops on the way, but it is the fact we keep striving forward that counts!
Incase you missed it I have summarised some of the key events in 2019 around pressure care.
SSKIN now aSSKINg:
This has been slow to filter through to homes and is being incorporated across NHS trusts. I am working on updating a poster for you to use in-house and will share to the group once finished for your comments/suggestions. See previous blogs for more detailed description of updates but in summary the added ‘a’ is assessment to ensure risk assessments are done in timely manner and are evaluated as to the residents need. The ‘g’ is for giving information, involving the resident and/or the NOK in decision making, investigation and in areas where compliance of the care plan is compromised it is vital and must be demonstrated and evidenced under the mental capacity act and duty of candour.
EPUAP Guidelines update
Summary of key points around ‘Surface’ aspect of EPUAP guidelines relating to the aSSKINg bundle can be found here.
OSKA Stop the Pressure Roadshow days
We had two fantastic OSKA ‘Stop The Pressure Roadshows’ in Woking and Stockport in November. These where the first hosted by OSKA with an agenda set and delivered by you.
The themes of discussions coming from emerging themes in long term care and hospices.
Thank you for using your voice to debate and discuss the challenges and success of prevention of harms. The speakers from your organisations were fantastic and the feedback I got was overwhelming and it was refreshing to hear that others across the UK from similar environments are facing the same issues.
I am consistently promoting the voice of long term care so keep engaged and let me know if you have any suggestions.
I strongly encourage you to publish your quality improvement initiatives, let me know if you would like any support with this.
Pressure Ulcer Prevention Champion Group – Facebook.
The Facebook Champion group page has been growing in membership with now 170 members across the UK all from long term care and hospices. This group is for you and your colleagues as a discussion and resource. Also to help with sustaining your hard work on quality improvement by keeping engaged and up to date on PU discussions.
So don’t be shy throw a question out to the group, and remember there is NO such thing as a stupid question. You will find the conundrum that has you scratching your head will be the same for many others and a potential simple solution may be round the corner.
Please do share the group link to colleagues you think may like to join the group page.
I look forward to continuing to support you in 2020.
