Finalists announced for the 2019 HSJ Anaesthesia and Perioperative Medicine Team of the Year award

The team at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King’s Lynn was nominated for its arterial line safety. By developing a non-injectable arterial connecter which ensured that clinical staff could take a blood sample but never inject into an artery, the team was shown to improve patient safety.

The National Hip Fracture Database showed that the Queen Alexandra Hospital NHS Foundation Trust was in the bottom half of its overall ranking for performing fascia iliaca blocks (FIBs). The team, comprising clinicians from emergency, trauma and orthopaedic departments, was nominated for its results in the development of a specially designed FIB trolley used in the emergency department and a FIB bag used on the wards. As a result this project has seen an 82 per cent increase in patients receiving FIBs.

The Wirral University Teaching NHS Hospitals set up a dedicated pharmacy prescribing team to work alongside nursing staff, surgeons and anaesthetists in the surgical elective admissions lounge to prescribe drugs to patients undergoing elective surgery. The team has been shortlisted for its work to reduce the average time of 36 hours for prescriptions generated to just 43 minutes.

As the elderly population increases, so too do the number of patients presenting with hip fractures and multiple co-morbidities. Disappointing results in the National Hip Fracture audit led the team at Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust to start a seven day, consultant-led perioperative trauma care bundle to improve the outcome of these patients. As a result of the bundle initiatives, the uptake of patients receiving FIBs increased from 28 per cent in 2014 to 96 per cent in 2018.

The Freeman Hospital in Newcastle took a fresh approach to pain management after lower limb amputation. Following the procedure, patients were given a low dose local anaesthetic infusion for seven days through a perineural catheter. As a result, over a 72-hour period, mean pain movement dropped and length of stay in hospital decreased. The team has been nominated for its efforts.

Lastly, the team at Sherwood Forest Hospitals knew that they could improve on the day cancellation rates for operations and have been recognised for their efforts. The team managed to backfill operations by contacting patients five days prior to their scheduled operation to check whether they still needed the operation and reminded them of starvation and drug instructions. As a result of the project, the on-day cancellation rate went down and session use in theatres rose.

Read the full profiles from the HSJ here.