Family Nursing and Home Care shortlisted for patient safety awards

Their work on improving outcomes by developing a positive safety culture within a community healthcare setting has been shortlisted for the ‘Developing a Positive Safety Culture’ Award at this year’s Health Service Journal (HSJ) Patient Safety Awards which recognises safety, culture and positive experience in patient care, celebrating its worthy finalists on a national scale.

The HSJ Patient Safety Awards acknowledges the hard-working teams and individuals who are continually striving to deliver improved patient care. HSJ are partnered by the Nursing & Midwifery Council (NMC) for the award category in which Family Nursing & Home Care (FNHC) are finalists. Following the thorough judging process, FNHC’s submission has made the final shortlist amid 415 entries logged for the 2024 awards programme.

FNHC is a charity which provides Jersey’s essential community healthcare services ranging from antenatal to end of life care and includes services such as health visiting, school nursing, community children’s nursing, district nursing and rapid response and reablement which are commissioned by the Government of Jersey.

A positive safety culture is defined as one where the environment is collaboratively crafted, created and nurtured so that everybody can flourish to ensure brilliant, safe care. This is achieved through continuous learning and improvement of safety risks; supportive, psychologically safe team work; enabling and empowering speaking up by all.

When things go wrong in health care it is vital that staff feel safe to speak up and not be fearful that they will be blamed. Most often the causes of patient safety incidents are because of systems and processes. However, whilst the significance of the safety culture has been understood for some time now and most health care organisations reflect best practice in terms of their policies and procedures, the reality can be somewhat different.

FNHC recognised risk to patient safety associated with a negative safety culture which can be linked to low levels of incident reporting. Work was undertaken to understand why reporting levels were low. Barriers to reporting included fear of blame, lack of feedback and actions. Changes to culture driven by involvement at all levels of the organisation, values and best practice have resulted in high levels of reporting with low levels of harm where staff feel safe to speak up and action is taken to improve outcomes.

With a focus upon safety events which affect people who use FNHC’s services, FNHC has been able to identify unmet need and has introduced resources and roles funded by the charity to meet these needs to improve outcomes for patients, clients, children and the families they support.

Across the services FNHC had approximately 65,000 face to face contacts with islanders in 2023. Patient satisfaction is very high, numbers of complaints are very low. FNHC employs approximately 175 staff. Turnover is low and 92% of staff surveyed in 2023 would recommend FNHC as a place to work.

FNHC’s Director of Governance & Care, Claire White (pictured) said: “This is such exciting news – changing organisational culture is not a simple task that can just happen, it has to evolve based upon a shared vision and values that involves everyone, but more importantly, when developing a positive safety culture you have to walk the walk. All staff at all levels are role models and leaders in patient safety at FNHC. We cannot underestimate the impact and positive boost being shortlisted for a HSJ Patient Safety Award will bring to the Charity. Our values and culture are what make us great and this will help to recognise and celebrate the excellent safe care FNHC deliver.

“It’s well known within our sector that the HSJ awards programme is a high profile and hugely respected platform to showcase the work and achievements of the many healthcare professionals who enter, and we’re delighted to have been recognised on this prestigious shortlist for a 2024 Patient Safety Award. We hope our entry might also inspire other colleagues to consider submitting their projects, too!”