Tool used by 39 care homes in the East Midlands has been shortlisted for three Patient Safety Awards including Patient Safety in the Community Award; Patient Safety Education and Training Award; and Improving Care for Older People Award.

The Landielijke Pravelentiemeting Zorgkwaliteit (LPZ) - Care Homes Harms Prevalence Audit Tool and QI Programme was developed by Maastricht University in The Netherlands and is now used in Austria, New Zealand, Turkey, Brazil, Germany and Switzerland.

Nursing and residential homes in the East Midlands are the first in the UK to use LPZ, which measures the prevalence of common care issues such as pressure ulcers, continence, nutrition, falls, restraint and pain.

First introduced four years ago, 39 care homes across the five counties of the region are now using LPZ and have made significant improvements to the care they deliver.

Routinely reviewing LPZ data, allows nursing and residential homes to make improvements to the care they deliver resulting in reduced falls, reduced pressure ulcers, improved continence and pain management etc.

The Patient Safety Awards recognise and celebrate the initiatives, people and processes that put the safety and care of patients at the forefront. The awards LPZ has been shortlisted for highlights the many safety elements that it covers as an initiative including the care of older people in the community and an emphasis on the importance of staff training and education.

As well as improving patient safety, LPZ helps the NHS to save money, for example by reducing the costs of treating pressure ulcers. If LPZ was used across all care homes in the East Midlands there would be an annual saving for the NHS of £4.58m.

The East Midlands Patient Safety Collaborative (EMPSC) – a programme in the East Midlands Academic Health Science Network (EMAHSN) – has funded the roll-out of the LPZ tool to the 39 care homes, as well as supporting the ongoing quality improvement and providing training for care home staff.

Cheryl Crocker, East Midlands Patient Safety Lead said “We are in a unique position to be able to support and facilitate improvement across the NHS and LPZ is a testament to how that can work in practice. Being shortlisted in three categories highlights how much of a difference to many elements of patient safety the LPZ tool can make. We hope that the recognition of these awards will help us fulfil our goal of a future roll-out of the tool in other regions outside of the East Midlands.”

Mercy Cofie-Cudjoe Manager of Alexandra Lodge Care Home in Nottingham who earlier this year won the 'Above and Beyond' award and 'Care Home Team of the Year' at the LPZ awards hosted by the EMPSC, said: “Before using LPZ, we were told by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) that our home required improvement and I was shocked and disappointed. Since putting measures in place, including using the LPZ tool our home is now ranked as ‘good’ and I hope it will soon be classed as ‘outstanding’. LPZ helped us to identify some issues that were effecting the safety of our residents that we have since been able to fix.”

The finalists will be announced at the Patient Safety Awards Ceremony on 2 July in Manchester.