732 Who’s Your Consultant Surgeon? - a Quality Improvement Project
Z Hinchcliffe, Q Z Siah, J Ali, G Iacob, E Gelber- Surgery
Abstract
Aim
Recommendation 236 of the Francis Inquiry Report (2013) states that all inpatients should have a nominated clinician responsible for their overall admission, improving accountability, safety, and continuity of care. This relies heavily on effective communication, which can be challenging amongst surgical patients due to illness severity and urgent admission process. This Quality Improvement Project (QIP) aimed to investigate recommendation compliance through patient awareness of their named surgical care-teams.
Method
A two-cycle closed-loop QIP was performed across seven surgical wards at a District General Hospital (May-June 2022). A questionnaire was designed to survey baseline patient knowledge of consultant surgeon and nominated nurse’s names. Data on ward/headboard information was also collected. To implement change, junior doctor education was delivered to encourage communication with patients on their responsible care-teams. Post-intervention, results were re-audited as above.
Results
Forty-two patients were included in the baseline cycle; most did not know their surgeon or nurse’s names at 71% and 62% respectively. Post-intervention, from the 49 patients audited, a 14% improvement in awareness of surgeon’s name was shown. At baseline, 76% of ward whiteboards contained correct information on nominated staff, however only 2% of bed-headboards contained the surgeon’s details. Following intervention, this improved to 95% and 24% respectively.
Conclusions
Patient awareness of their responsible surgeon was poor, creating potential issues in compromised care and patient satisfaction. The intervention was successful in raising surgical inpatient awareness of their responsible consultant surgeon and improving compliance in updating ward/headboard information.