National Health Executive Podcast

“What we’ve got to do is look at what is the impact of having a wound infection, or a surgical site infection, on the patient, on the doctor and the healthcare professionals, as well as the economic burden within the NHS.”As somebody who has become highly knowledgeable on these what these impacts of a surgical site infection (SSI) are, it is why Giles Bond-Smith is so passionate around improving the processes and attention paid to it within the NHS.The Emergency General/HPB surgeon at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust joined host Matt Roberts on NHE’s Finger on the Pulse podcast discussing some of the challenges commonly faced around this type of infection prevention, but also the opportunities to innovate as well.“We should be doing everything possible to look at how we can mitigate surgical site infections for our patients.“Typically, as surgeons, we don’t really pay much attention to our wounds, but the patients do. How does a patient judge whether an operation went well or not? They look down at their wound; they see how big it was.“If the wound is less in size than the wound is in their mind, they think we’ve done well. If the wound heals beautiful, people show it and say the operation went very well.“Whereas, if someone’s had a complete wound dehiscence due to infection, they feel the operation was a disaster. Now, it might not have been, but that’s how the patient perceives it, and we’ve got to take this more seriously.”But how do we tackle surgical site infections and ensure the wounds can heal neatly, safely and quickly for the patient?One of the ways, as Giles explains during the podcast episode, is to look at some of the really simple but innovative technology out there – such as the antibacterial Ethicon PLUS sutures he and his team uses – as ways to improve patient outcomes without having to drastically alter the way in which these surgeries are performed.Much of the success instead can come from small, incremental gains in the procedures, awareness and tools being utilised by surgeons.Listen to Ep 24. of NHE’s Finger on the Pulse podcast with Giles Bond-Smith  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What leads to a digital healthcare solution being adopted?Every situation is unique across the healthcare service, but often these innovations span out of some of the simplest of circumstances. For Open Medical’s Innovation Director, Piyush Mahapatra, he remembers the instance of a cleaner accidentally wiping down a whiteboard which had been used to track orthopaedic patients. A momentary lapse in the system, which presented a sudden challenge and an opportunity for a digital alternative.“I’m a practising orthopaedic surgeon in London, and an NHS clinical entrepreneur.“Most patients who have surgery for broken bones within the NHS are often managed on systems such as Excel sheets, Word documents or physical whiteboards.“In our particular organisation, it was a physical whiteboard and, we came in one weekend and the cleaner had rubbed the whiteboard off.“After that, version one [of our trauma digital solution] was created. It was a fairly simple database system at that point, designed to help manage those lists of patients in a better way.“Since then, things have really moved on [at Open Medical]. We became a cloud native platform in 2017, and things really escalated. Now, we’re helping about 70 NHS trusts around the country manage their patients.“We’ve got over a million patients on our systems today.Through Open Medical, Piyush and the team have been able to leverage their own personal clinical experiences to develop a solution which addresses a significant need felt in the NHS, with patient management, pathways, and efficiencies. It has been built to address a need Piyush and his colleagues themselves feel in their regular NHS roles, and allows the team to talk clinically with partners, as well as technologically.“One of the things that I tell everyone is that I use [our Open Medical system] when I’m working clinically. We all use our systems quite a lot.“We get a real understanding of what it is like to utilise the platform, so if things are not user-friendly or don’t work as well as they should, we can adapt and change them.“We can get that feeling if something doesn’t provide the functionality clinicians need, because we see it from that perspective too.”  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On Episode 21 of NHE's Finger on the Pulse podcast, host Matt Roberts is joined by Matt Inada-Kim, Irem Patel and Catherine Dale to discuss how pulse oximetry was identified and scaled out during the pandemic to support the pandemic response. Matt, Irem and Catherine offer a range of different perspective, brought together by the Health Innovation Network South London. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On Episode 20 of NHE's Finger on the Pulse podcast, Dr Shanti Vijayaraghavan of Barts Health NHS Trust and Will Warburton, Director of Improvement at the Health Foundation, join host Matt Roberts to discuss the innovative work on video consultations that Shanti and her team have been carrying out for a number of years in Newham, in London. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On Episode 19 of NHE’s Finger on the Pulse podcast, host Matt Roberts is joined by Annie Laverty, Chief Experience Officer at Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, and Will Warburton, Director of Improvement at the Health Foundation, discussing an innovative ‘Corona Voice’ staff wellbeing programme being ran at the trust.Annie explained: “Looking after your workforce is really important. It makes sense from a human perspective, as you want to hold onto good staff.“The NHS relies on the goodwill of people being deeply committed to a purpose to provide the best care to patients, but we know that providing that care sometimes comes at a cost to individuals.“NHS organisations need to do all that they can to protect staff wellbeing because we know that it is inextricably linked to the care that patients receive, and also the safety and reliability of those organisations.”The trust’s Corona Voice programme came out of a project being undertaken before the pandemic, to provide more up-to-date data and staff feedback to the trust and which allowed Northumbria Healthcare NHS FT, alongside support from Will and the Health Foundation team, to expand the scope of the project and better understand and support their trust colleagues through the challenges of dealing with Covid-19 and hospital care.Listen to the full episode of NHE’s Finger on the Pulse podcast with Annie and Will above. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dr Anshumen Bhagat, Founder and Chief Medical Officer of GPDQ - alongside continuing to be a practicing NHS GP - joined us on episode 18 of NHE’s Finger on the Pulse podcast, talking us through primary care, its challenges over the last 12 months and his visions for its future. We talk difficulties, solutions and ambitions in this insightful episode of the podcast.GPDQ is an organisation well-placed to be assisting with the NHS’ primary care challenges right now, because each and every one of it’s members experiences those challenges in their own daily working lives.That is because one of the core values at the heart of GPDQ is that it is run by working NHS staff. Be it a GP, specialist nurse or paramedic, should a healthcare professional move entirely into private practice, then they won’t be found among GPDQ’s roster of staff.And having that skin in the game, so to speak, is important. As Anshu explains: “We lose about 90-100 GPs a month in this country. We need more coming through.”So, to be able to provide opportunities to work differently, to work with different teams and provide services perhaps outside of their day-to-day NHS duties, including private practice, all without removing staff from an already waning health service pool is essential.It is a belief seen in one of GPDQ’s convictions when it does provide private healthcare. In part, due to its staff’s continued involvement in the NHS side of affairs, moving treatment and care to private provision is less about seizing on a commercial opportunity, and far more about the knock-on implications that can have for those who do have to rely on the NHS to provide their care.“Every patient we see in the private sector is one less patient who needs to be seen in the public sector.”With the pandemic, that has become truer than ever before. The NHS is facing a significant treatment backlog, to overcome which it will have to work with and rely on services like those which GPDQ provide. And to their credit, these services have innovated significantly in response to the pandemic’s demands too.Anshu describes how his organisation and colleagues have worked to deliver necessary services, including virtual clinics - including being able to step in at short notice for NHS staff absences (minimising disruption for patients) - through to running home visitations still where necessary using Covid ‘hot’ car systems.It is a period of substantial change for primary care right now, with the likes of Anshu being able to provide a great insight into it from both sides of the NHS/private debate.To hear much more from Anshu, listen in to episode 18 of NHE’s Finger on the Pulse podcast…  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“What do you want from your care?”It seems a quite basic question for a clinician to ask. However, in its simplicity is an inherent power. By beginning the conversation in such a way, we naturally shift the patient journey and our interactions with that patient towards a process of shared decision making; we offer the patient a level of involvement and autonomy in their own care.And by facilitating that informed involvement in their own treatments and journey, there are real benefits for everyone involved: for the patients, the clinicians and the wider system alike. For the patient, there can be no better barometer of what is and is not important to them individually in their care, based on their personal experiences, priorities and desires, while clinicians will equally benefit from more engaged patients who are likely to be invested in managing their condition and sticking to the treatment plans that they’ve had a hand in deciding on.Read the full article here: http://btpubs.co.uk/publication/?m=62920&i=691004&p=34&pre=1 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On Episode 16 of NHE's Finger on the Pulse podcast, host Matt Roberts is joined by SilverCloud Health's Head of Europe Dr Lloyd Humphreys as we discuss mental health, Covid-19 and digital mental health services. As a leading digital mental health service provider, SilverCloud Health saw a significant uptick in people using their digital mental health service; was that anticipated, and what are the implications longer-term?As Dr Humphreys explained: "Uncertainty plays a critical role. [The rise in digital mental health services usage] was down to people having a completely normal reaction to an abnormal situation [in Covid-19]."It's really important we need to not talk about mental illness but talk about mental health. It's a universal truth that we all have mental health."And accessing support is naturally going to change and develop to meet the needs of people at that time, such as shifting more towards remote and digital services as the virus restricted our movements and increased concern among people. As Dr Humphreys described, people "want to access support and help in their own way".Listen to the full conversation to on Episode 16 of NHE's Finger on the Pulse podcast... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On Episode 15 of NHE's Finger on the Pulse podcast, brought to you by Brother UK, regular host Matt Roberts is joined by Ged Cairns and Matt Jones of Brother UK to discuss how IT and technology can directly impact and improve patient care - the only real "currency" which matters across the health sector, as Matt Jones explains.Our discussions with Brother come on the back of a body of work carried out in partnership between our two organisations, culminating in an audience survey and whitepaper report - which can be downloaded now here - which we reflect on the findings of during the episode.Patient care is the ultimate goal for all across the health service, as seen throughout our survey of both primary and secondary care members. As Matt Jones explained: "Moving into the public sector, it was something I was immediately struck by. The currency that people talk about it patient care."Their ultimate goal is to increase levels of patient care."And as we discuss, both through Brother's products and more widely, there are real opportunities to be found across the health service. That can be everything from significant changes, from the labelling of blood bottles as one example from the episode, through to the marginal gains which all add up across an NHS employee's shift or working day.Want to find out more, jump in and give Episode 15 of NHE's Finger on the Pulse podcast a listen... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On Episode 14 of NHE's Finger on the Pulse podcast, we're joined by Professor Craig Jackson, Professor of Occupational Health PsychologyBirmingham City University to discuss the coronavirus pandemic, the health messaging around it and how those in power have missed a trick by overlooking the key role of psychology in informing the public of restrictions, measures and the ever-changing situation.Together, Professor Jackson and regular host Matt Roberts discuss the things the government got right in the early stages, the uncertainty and vagueness caused by a second set of messaging open to interpretation and how things could be pulled together once more - including through the use of psychology, creativity and more individual messaging.We also discuss the risks of an impending Christmas turkey shortage... ensuring it's not all doom and gloom in what is quite a difficult and ever-present subject in all of lives right now.Join the discussion and let us know across social media what your thoughts are. We're always keen to engage with our listeners and hear different points of view. Whether you agree or disagree, discussion is at the core of how we learn and improve: as a society, as an industry and as individuals. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.