Our East Midlands Patient Safety Collaborative (PSC) care home safety initiative has been announced as the winner of the Patient Safety Education and Training Award at the annual HSJ Patient Safety Awards ceremony. The initiative was also shortlisted for the Patient Safety in the Community and Improving Care for Older People Awards.

The Landielijke Pravelentiemeting Zorgkwaliteit (LPZ) - Care Homes Harms Prevalence Audit Tool was developed by Maastricht University in the Netherlands. 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, pain and deterioration.

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.

The Patient Safety Awards celebrate those that see the safety and care of patients as a primary driver. The Patient Safety Education and Training Award highlights care initiatives that have a focus on educating multiple staff groups bringing different disciplines together to consider and improve patient safety – the LPZ programme looks to offer training to all care home professionals from managers to care home cooks.

Judges commented “This collaborative project demonstrated innovation, a clear project process and fantastic outcomes which are clearly seen by the patients. The judges specifically liked the fact this project was driven through a bottom up approach.”

Mike Hannay, Managing Director at East Midlands AHSN said “This award highlights the excellent work of the Patient Safety Collaborative and the commitment to put patient safety at the forefront of care. We are lucky to have care home professionals who are very engaged with the programme, as they can see the tangible benefits and we’d like to thank them for their continued efforts to improve care for older people by training staff on common problems.”

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 East Midlands Patient Safety Collaborative 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.

To find out more about the LPZ programme, click here.