23rd November 2020
North Bristol NHS Trust is celebrating winning the South West regional NHS Parliamentary Award, in the Future NHS category, for the rapid deployment of System C’s CareFlow Connect and Vitals as part of its Covid-19 response.
At the beginning of the Covid-19 outbreak, over 3,500 clinicians went live with the CareFlow instant messaging and care co-ordination app to aid collaboration in and between teams, facilitate electronic handovers and share clinical photos, with more clinical information for patient care in one place to improve decision making.
Shortly after, the Trust went live in just nine days with CareFlow e-observations. The two systems are linked and the latest National Early Warning Scores (NEWS2) feed through into the team-based care co-ordination app; this means all members of a team caring for a particular patient have the latest information available on desktops or mobile devices.
The NHS Parliamentary Awards are designed to recognise NHS staff, volunteers and carers that go above and beyond the call of duty to make the NHS a better service – with hard work, exciting new ideas and putting patients first. This year’s awards generated more than 700 entries.
North Bristol’s new digital tools are playing a valuable role in its Covid-19 response. Staff in the Intensive Care Unit are better supported with instant messaging and pictures for faster care of Covid-19 patients. Handovers are digital, fast, comprehensive, and collaborative.
Neil Darvill, director of IM&T, North Bristol NHS Trust commented:
This achievement was a team effort across the Trust. The success of our roll-out can be attributed to many teams and individuals, the partnership with System C, and also the working relationship with our clinical and patient-facing colleagues who fully embraced this change – particularly in challenging circumstances that none of us could have predicted. It has been a watershed moment in terms of how our Trust colleagues see the value of technology to their work and patient care.
Winning the regional award means the Trust is automatically shortlisted in the national Parliamentary Awards in the Future NHS category.
The deployments were originally planned as part of the Trust’s ongoing digital transformation in partnership with System C, however the launch was accelerated to better support care as the Trust escalated its Covid-19 response.
A regional judging panel of senior NHS England and NHS Improvement representatives selected the project after MPs from across the country were asked to find and nominate individuals/teams they thought have made the biggest improvement to health services in their constituencies.
Markus Bolton, joint chief executive of System C, remarked:
We are delighted that North Bristol has won this public recognition. The Trust has really shown what can be achieved with effective user engagement. I’m pleased our software has supported North Bristol with their efforts to embrace digital change and I’m looking forward to supporting the Trust further in its implementation of an integrated electronic patient record.
National winners will be announced during a ceremony at the House of Commons on 7 July 2021.
