THE Vale of Glamorgan’s largest medical centre has emerged as a winner in the 2020 Health Services Journal (HSJ) Patient Safety Awards.

West Quay Medical Centre (WQMC), in Barry, won the Quality Improvement Initiative of the Year 2020 category with its project - Improving Patient Safety through Better Access to Appropriate Professionals in Primary Care: A Whole System Approach.

The award recognises its outstanding contribution to healthcare.

More than 1000 guests tuned in to the Patient Safety Awards, which this year took a virtual format on November 10, to celebrate the very best achievements and innovations driving the national patient safety agenda.

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WQMC was recognised for its ambition, visionary spirit, and the demonstrable positive impact that their project has had on patient and staff experiences within the health and social care sector.

The Improvement Team at WQMC came together during this nine-month project, to focus on what matters to patients.

Its Patient Participation Group (PPG) had identified access and continuity of care as areas for improvement.

A baseline PPG survey established that 95 per cent of patients considered their care to be good or very good, but 54 per cent had experienced difficulty in obtaining an appointment with a nominated health care professional.

Working in co-production with the PPG was a key feature of the access project.

A PPG representative was a key member of the weekly Quality Improvement meetings and fed back to the wider patient group.

The three main drivers were changing the cultural norm of “GP first” for an appointment request; redesigning the appointment system; and reducing unwarranted variation and waste in the system.

The outcomes included an increase in core clinical capacity of five per cent and including an increase in allied Healthcare Professionals (AHPs).

Improvements in medication safety included an eight-fold increase in the number of bespoke medication optimisation reviews with a clinical pharmacist, radical changes to the repeat prescribing system to reduce waste and medication errors, and a focus on high risk medications, such as opioids, resulting in a downward trend of overall prescribing in these drug categories.

Holistic assessments for very frequent attender patients identified unmet needs, and improved their care, while also increasing the interval between subsequent appointments, in an example of improvements both for an individual and for the larger patient cohort.

GP quality improvement lead, Dr Sue Goodfellow said: “A team approach in co-production with patients using QI methodology, has delivered meaningful outcomes.

“Most importantly, the wider team learnt QI skills during the project, which means this approach has been adopted for ongoing improvement work since this HSJ Awards nomination.”

WQMC business manager, Gareth Thomas said: “We are absolutely delighted to have been named as the winners in the Quality Improvement Initiative of the Year.

“It means a great deal to all of our staff to be recognised in this way, particularly where we have had to adapt our way of working due to the coronavirus pandemic using QI tools.

“We are confident that the positive impact of this award will help to create a long-lasting legacy, in addition to our NHS Wales awards.

“This award will provide a tremendous boost to both staff and patients at West Quay Medical Centre and I am sure it will bolster our efforts to develop and continually improve our services.”