AH ANNUAL REPORT 2018

Commentary from Clinical
Commissioning Groups
Liverpool, South Sefton, Southport and Formby and
Knowsley CCGs welcome the opportunity to jointly
comment on the Alder Hey Children’s Hospital NHS
Foundation Trust Draft Quality Account for 2017/18. It is
acknowledged that the submission to Commissioners
was draft and that some parts of the document require
updating. Commissioners look forward to receiving the
Trust’s final version of the Quality Account. We have
worked closely with the Trust throughout 2017/18 to
gain assurances that the services delivered were safe,
effective and personalised to service users. The CCGs
share the fundamental aims of the Trust and supports
their strategy to deliver high quality, harm free care. The
account reflects good progress on most indicators.
The Trust’s presentation of its Quality Account was
an honest, open and positive demonstration of the
improvements made to date and an acknowledgement
of areas that need to be developed further. It was
identified that there was a strong focus on the use of
innovation in the organisation.
This Account details the Trust’s commitment to
improving the quality of the services it provides, with
commissioners supporting the key priorities for the
improvement of quality during 2017/18.
Priority 1: Further embed a safety culture throughout
the organisation
Priority 2: Increase engagement of children, young
people and families in improving quality and developing
services.
Priority 3: Increase number of defined clinical care
pathways across our clinical specialties.
Priority 4: Provide support that will enable our staff
to feel valued and respected by the organisation and
actively contribute to the organisation’s success.
Priority 5: Continue to improve the environment to
make it work for both patients and staff.
This is a comprehensive report that clearly
demonstrates progress within the Trust. It identifies
where the organisation has done well, where further
improvements are required and what actions are
needed to achieve these goals, in line with the Trust
Quality Strategy. Through this Quality Account and
on-going quality assurance process, the Trust clearly
demonstrates their commitment to improving the
quality of care and services delivered. Alder Hey
Children’s NHS Foundation Trust continues to develop
innovative ways to capture the experience of patients
and their families in order to drive improvements in the
quality of care delivered. The Trust places significant
emphasis on its safety agenda, with an open and
transparent culture, and this is reflected with the work
the Trust has undertaken to further embed a safety
culture in the organisation.
Of particular note is the work the Trust has undertaken
to improve outcomes on the following work streams:
• Improvements in sepsis awareness and screening,
with 100% of inpatient and emergency department
patients screened for sepsis; the development of
an electronic sepsis pathway; the average time to
antibiotic administration for Inpatients id 47 mins
(Jul17 – Feb18) and emergency department patients is
64 mins (Jul17 – Feb18).
• The Trust is the third highest reporter of incidents,
maintaining its position in the top quartile with a
further increase in reported incidents in 2017/18.
• Improvements in the asthma pathway, with the
co-design of a new pathway with parents; reduced
frequency of steroid treatment from 3 times per day
to once per day; reduced side effects of treatment;
reduced frequency of exposure to X-rays from 30% of
asthmatic children to 8% and a reduction in the cost
of medication by 90%
• The innovations in the use of technology and the
introduction of the ‘Alder Play App’, to improve
wayfinding, familiarisation and distraction for patients.
Commissioners are aspiring through strategic
objectives to develop a local NHS that delivers great
outcomes, now and for future generations. This means
reflecting the government’s objectives for the NHS set
out in their mandate to us, adding our own stretching
ambitions for improving health and delivering better
services to go even further to tailor care to the local
health economy. Providing high quality care and
achieving excellent outcomes for our patients is the
central focus of our work and is paramount to our
success.
It is felt that the priorities for improvement identified
for the coming year are reflective of the current issues
across the health economy. The priorities being:
Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust 150
Annual Report & Accounts 2017/18