In the UK there is an information gap between GPs (Primary Care
providers) and Secondary Care providers like hospitals and
treatment centres. At Circle our focus on providing the best
possible care for our patients does not end when we discharge you
from our Treatment Centre. In Nottingham we pioneered and piloted a
patient post-operative survey, where patients were phoned at 24
hours and again 28-days after discharge and asked a number of
questions relating to post-operative areas we know concern
patients, these are:
- Post-operative deep vein thrombosis (DVT)
- Re-admission to other hospitals
- Pain
- Infection
The initial findings and great patient response rate to our
pilot means we have now rolled out this survey across our
Nottingham NHS Treatment Centre. Between September 2010 - July
2011, 1,792 patients from 3,825 patients who had a surgical
procedure in one of our operating theatres took our telephone
survey giving us an impressive 47% response rate. While we operate
on a much greater number of patients, we believe this sample to be
proportionate and representative. Two key findings have emerged
from our first year survey.
Firstly a number of patients were going to their GP
post-operation for antibiotics because they believed they had a
post-operative infection as their wound was red and itchy. These
symptoms can be related to normal healing as well as infection, and
this has lead to a change in our procedures. We are taking steps to
understand in more detail what happens to patients once they are
discharged so we can be better prepared to support them and
minimise their post operative issues. From our findings we
are now looking at the possibility of prescribing patients
having certain operations, where we know there is a higher
incidence of post discharge infection, with antibiotics at
discharge. Additionally all patients are now given access to a 24
hours per day nurse telephone service for 14 days, who they can
speak to if they believe they may have a post-operative infection.
We can then dispense their antibiotics through our on-site Pharmacy
to avoid a GP visit and gather data to allow us to better
understand how we can continuously improve our patients'
experience.
Secondly this approach is novel and consequently we have a lot
of opportunity to learn what happens to our patients post discharge
and this learning enables us to reflect and continuously improve
our service and our patient's experience. This approach is a step
ahead of what most UK healthcare providers deliver today and is an
indicator of our relentless commitment to the best possible patient
experience.
Our patient post-operative survey now happens on a regular
monthly basis and the monthly findings are reviewed by our
Executive Board, so actions and improvements to provide better
patient care are quickly implemented. We are proud to lead
the UK on better understanding of post-operative patient care and
will continue to push for a nationwide system to be put in
place.