Sheffield councillors discuss hospital treatment quality concerns with NHS leaders

Sheffield City Council’s health scrutiny sub-committee was discussing a quality strategy being adopted by Sheffield Teaching Hospitals, which include the Royal Hallamshire and Northern General.

The report was presented by co-authors Jennifer Hill, medical director (operations), and Angie Legge, quality director, at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust.

Coun Gail Smith suggested getting feedback from patients after discharge. She said: “Why not contact them even if they’ve gone home?

“My husband was in hospital for five weeks. I could have written you a book about the things that went wrong. Because I’m a politician, I’ve made an official complaint but most people don’t, they go home, they’re glad to be home and that’s the end of it.

“You could learn such a lot from patients and relatives once that patient’s gone home.”

Forgotten

Coun Smith said that she was a retired nurse and patients get forgotten about after they’ve left.

The NHS duo took her point and agreed it would be useful to do after a few weeks.

Dr Trish Edney from Healthwatch said there needs to be training support and “trying to change the culture within the staff because they’re under pressure”.

Angie Legge explained earlier that the report is focused on staff delivering a service to patients that is a safe, effective and positive experience. She said that a national patient safety project is under way and it “has to be part of the day job”.

Staff are undergoing training and managers are looking at how to reduce paperwork safely to allow staff more time to prioritise those issues. Jennifer Hill said that work is going on to encourage medical staff to talk about what has gone wrong in order to learn from it.

Committee chair Coun Ruth Milsom said that patient safety issues are linked to staffing issues. She was told that nursing staffing levels have increased a lot but extra wards that are still open following the pandemic means they are stretched a bit thin.

Jennifer Hill said there is pressure in the emergency department and delays in getting patients into hospital means there is the potential for harm to be done.

Minority groups

Angie Legge added that more high-quality social care facilities to enable patients to be discharged would make a big difference – she said that more than 150 patients at any time no longer needed to be in hospital.

Coun Abtisam Mohamed asked how the quality stategy will engage with minority groups. She mentioned problems that black women have in maternity wards.

Angie Legge said: “We need to engage more with different groups and voices that haven’t been heard before so that we can build that in and find out how can we improve it because at the moment we don’t have a clear (picture).”

Jennifer Hill added that there is work going on in the maternity department, speaking to groups such as the Maternity Voice partnership and asking them to help identify which community groups to speak to.

Coun Mary Lea raised the issue of social care and at what point patients and families are involved in plans for when they are discharged. She was told that efforts are being made to start such conversations early to find out what patients want.

To see the Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust report online, go to https://www.sth.nhs.uk/clientfiles/File/Making%20a%20difference%20-%20the%20next%20chapter%2022-27%20copy.pdf

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