THE local health trust has signed a commitment to improve urgent and emergency care for patients as part of the first wave of health and care systems within the Emergency Care Improvement Programme (ECIP) in England.
The move has been made by Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust (WAHT) which, for the last 15 months, has failed to hit its four hour waiting time target in A&E.
The ECIP has published a series of agreements which represent a commitment to implement high priority actions to improve urgent and emergency care -including support from ECIP.
Each agreement is tailored to an individual system with the overall aim at WAHT being an Improvement in patient care and making the system safer with:
1) Improvement in performance against the emergency care four hour standard
2) Reduction in daily and weekly variation in performance against the national emergency care four hour standard
3) Reduction in mortality
4) An increase in the proportion of patients returning directly to their usual place of residence from hospital
Dr Andy Phillips, interim chief medical officer at WAHT said: “The work with ECIP underpins our commitment to drive up standards, improve safety for patients and the additional support and resources provide by ECIP will help us achieve this. To be in the first wave of NHS Trusts announced is great news for patients throughout Worcestershire.”
Vincent Connolly, Medical Director for ECIP said: “The aim is to improve safety for patients. Having a clear set of priorities and the ability for each system to monitor them will prove powerful tools to support change. ECIP has committed resources, including clinical support, to help each system implement their improvements.”
