Cheshire & Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (CWP) has scooped a prize at the HSJ Patient Safety Awards 2024 for its efforts to significantly improve the way Mental Health Act information is processed.
The organisation, which has been a customer of Thalamos since 2020, was shortlisted for two awards – Safety Improvement through Technology Award and Early-Stage Patient Safety Innovation of the Year, the latter of which it won on the night.
Joining 206 other finalists and over 1,000 awards evening attendees in recognising the dedication healthcare professionals make to improving patient safety amid “challenging conditions” in the NHS, CWP was celebrated for optimising safety and innovating through digitisation of MHA administration by using Thalamos.
The judges recognised CWP and its MHA digitisation initiative for its “clear and practical approach” to addressing a key patient safety issue. The benefits to both staff and patients were evident, the judges said, with the potential for “significant time and cost savings”. The system-wide approach and focus on patient safety showed “real promise”, and the judges were excited about its potential to be scaled further.
Anushta Sivananthan, Medical Director at CWP, said: “I am so delighted that CWP and Thalamos have won the HSJ Patient Safety Awards prize for Early-Stage Patient Safety Innovation of the Year. The award has been made possible by the passion and dedication of the team, and the partnership between CWP and Thalamos to ensure people who are liable to be detained have their rights and safety protected. The impact of improved patient safety and reduced administrative burden on clinicians was visible straight away.”
Jan Devine, who manages the Mental Health Law Team at CWP, looked back on the initial thinking behind move to digitise. “The vision was to implement Thalamos software across CWP to enable secure electronic completion of Mental Health Act documentation. The digitisation of this system has enabled patients to have ‘real time’ access to their information and updates around the Mental Health Act, their rights, safeguards, and treatment processes.”
Following recommendations from the Independent Review of the Mental Health Act (2018) and the subsequent challenges presented through the pandemic, an initial 12-month Thalamos pilot project was launched by CWP in 2020 to provide a digitised system for the oversight and management of documentation pertaining to the Mental Health Act (1983). This successful pilot was then followed by widespread adoption across the trust.
Outcomes following trust rollout of Thalamos include significant reductions in staff time undertaking administration, flexibility allowing for remote completion of documentation from any location and improved patient access to “real time” information about how the MHA is being applied to them, their rights and ensuring lawful treatment.
Thalamos Client Director Zoe Seager said the award is an absolute testament to the vision and determination of Jan Devine and her team at CWP to improve patient safety and productivity across CWP, originally driven by the challenges presented by the pandemic, and it was an “absolute honour” joining them to celebrate on the night.
“It has been a true partnership, and the joint working has allowed Thalamos to continually improve our software to further reduce the chance for errors and improve usability. What is even more validating is that CWP is one of the very few Mental Health Trusts recognised in a general category at the awards, and the judging panel rightly recognised the national value and scalability of these evidence-based improvements.”
More effective administration of the Mental Health Act, Seager added, is fundamental to improving urgent and emergency care access, experience and outcomes for those in mental health crisis. With a new Bill soon to enter Parliament to update the Mental Health Act to improve patient outcomes and reduce inequalities, now is the time to digitise these pathways to ensure we can evidence the changes that the Bill seeks to deliver.
“At Thalamos we have also committed to ensuring our clients will have a seamless transition to the new Act when it comes into force, keeping patients safer during the transition period,” she said.
Find out who all the winners at the HSJ Patient Safety Awards 2024 were.
