Our Speech and Language Therapy Team are proud to be HSJ Partnership Awards 2024 Gold Winners of the Patient Safety Collaboration of the Year. They won the national award for their work in transforming patient safety with specialist, cost-effective dysphagia management e-learning and support.
The HSJ Partnerships Awards happen annually and celebrate success stories along with being a place to share and shape partnership working within integrated health care. The award ceremony took place 21 March at Evolution London in Battersea Park, and was attended by Laura Jones, Head of Service for Speech and Language Therapy (SLT), Anne Canby, Assistant Director of Allied Health Professions and Anita Smith Head of Service for Speech and Language Therapy at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, who was working at our trust during the development of this training along with partners Oakhouse Kitchen.
The e-learning has been adopted by nine NHS Trusts and several private organisations across the country and currently has 20,000 UK users. There has also been international interest in adopting the training, and work has begun around potential translation.
The award recognises the benefits to our service users and staff both in terms of safety and consistency of care. The e-learning has simplified the identification of difficulties and boosted staff confidence in recognising signs and symptoms, resulting in fewer inappropriate referrals and earlier patient interventions in our acute sites. In our community settings, referral rates have increased, aligning with the national agenda for transforming community services and reducing hospital admissions.
Anne Canby said ‘I am so proud of how the SLT team have worked innovatively and collaboratively since patient safety issues were raised back in 2018 to improve the knowledge and skills for our staff and ultimately improve patient safety.’