A nurse from George Eliot hospital has visited KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital in Singapore to share some of the training and techniques that have led to large reductions in avoidable hospital acquired pressure ulcers at the Nuneaton based Trust.
Tissue Viability Nurse Lorraine Thursby was invited as a guest of the Medical Director at the KK Hospital where she delivered training to staff on effective use of electronic beds and techniques to move patients, which help to reduce the risk of patients developing pressure ulcers.
Staff from the KK hospital visited several hospitals in the United Kingdom earlier in the year and were so impressed with the training at the George Eliot and the subsequent reductions in avoidable hospital acquired pressure ulcers that they invited Lorraine to come over to share her knowledge and experience.
Staff at the George Eliot are working hard to eliminate the most serious types of pressure ulcers, adopting a zero tolerance approach to tackling the issue. This has led to large reductions in avoidable hospital acquired pressure ulcers of all severity. This includes not reporting an avoidable hospital acquired grade four ulcer (the most serious kind) since August 2011 or an avoidable hospital acquired grade three ulcer since November 2011. Similar reductions have been seen in the less serious types of ulcers.
The Trust’s campaign to reduce pressure sores has been shortlisted in the ‘Care of Older People’ category at the 2012 Nursing Times Awards.
Along with all other hospital Trusts in the Midlands and East Strategic Health Authority area, George Eliot Hospital has committed to eliminating all grades two, three and four pressure ulcers by December.
Lorraine said: “We’ve worked so hard to reduce incidents of avoidable hospital acquired pressure ulcers in recent years and it’s nice that the hard work of all our staff has been recognised in this way. We’ve made it one of our top priorities at the George Eliot Hospital over the past couple of years to reduce such incidents, giving them the same level of priority we gave to hospital acquired infections a few years ago. By adopting this zero tolerance approach, our patients have benefitted from similar significant reductions.
“It was a great experience travelling to another country and experiencing health care in a different culture. Hopefully, this will just be start of a productive relationship with the KK Hospital; I’m sure that there is a lot we can learn from them and by sharing expertise, local people can benefit from practices taking place on the opposite side of the world.”
