Clinical Audit Heroes Awards 2023

And the winners are…

The Clinical Audit Heroes Awards are the highlight of Clinical Audit Awareness Week. They are an opportunity to recognise, share and learn from the work taking place to improve the quality of healthcare for patients and users of services. The winners were announced daily throughout Clinical Audit Awareness Week at online Lunch & Learn events, as follows…

Patient Safety Hero Monday 19 June 2023

WINNER: Robert Oakley, Senior Pharmacist at St George’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Robert and the team were recognised for work to improve safety in the use of vancomycin, an antibiotic that treats serious infections. Find out more here.

Patient and Public Involvement Hero Tuesday 20 June 2023

JOINT WINNER: Solent Academy of Research and Improvement Side by Side group. The judges were impressed by evidence of co-leading and advising on future audits, and so supporting long term change, in addition to the fact that training was made available for patients to be involved. Find out more here.

JOINT WINNER: Epilepsy12 Youth Advocates, Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. The judges were impressed by how this project demonstrates the prioritisation of patients, with young people involved in all elements of the audit, as well as innovative communications methods and strong links to professionals over an extended period of time. Case study here. Find out more here.

COMMENDED: Laura Hall, Quality and Audit Midwife at Southport and Ormskirk NHS Trust. Laura was recognised for a number of improvement activities, including asking patients about their experience of the Trust’s caesarean section pathway, the results of which were shared with the Maternity Voices Partnership. Find out more here.

Healthcare Inequalities Hero Wednesday 21 June 2023

WINNER: Isabel Cowling, Michelle Fleeman, Menik Upatissa and Indu Mahabeer, Acute Paediatric Team at Sandwell & West Birmingham NHS Trust. Recognised for a study to assess the health needs of Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children. The project’s results highlighted significant rates of unmet physical, mental and emotional health needs, and resulted in patient communications, changes to pathways, and important information sharing, among other innovations. Find out more here.

COMMENDED: Mikaela Wardle, Senior House Officer at Sandwell & West Birmingham NHS Trust, in partnership with the Homeless Patient Pathway and Alcohol Care teams. An audit of homeless patients presenting to City Hospital Emergency Department – a population which has high rates of substance and alcohol dependence, hepatitis C and multiple morbidity, compared to the general population – which identified multiple areas where changes to processes could significantly improve outcomes. Find out more here. Read the case study here.

Influencing Organisational Change Hero Thursday 22 June 2023

JOINT WINNER: Amy Baker, Patient Outcomes Manager, and the Patient Outcomes Team at Cambridge University Hospitals. The team was recognised for designing and populating a National Clinical Audit Benchmarking (NCAB) database, to record whether clinical teams have performed better, worse or similarly to the national average performance for all important clinical outcome measures. Presented as a dashboard with charts, this allows the hospital’s teams to easily compare and learn from peers across the country. Find out more here. Case study can be found here.

JOINT WINNER: Ella Howard, Emotional Health and Wellbeing Service Assistant Psychologist at Cambridgeshire Community Services. Recognised for taking a different approach to her audit programme, focusing on what could prevent clinicians producing quality documentation in order to determine what the “gold standard” looked like. Involved gaining buy in, everyone knowing what they were aiming for, and creating actions where they could see results that made a difference. Find out more here. The case study can be found here.

COMMENDED: Dementia and Delirium Team at Southport and Ormskirk NHS Trust. A reaudit against the SIGN 157 guideline Risk reduction and management in delirium (2019) and the NICE guideline NICE CG103 Delirium: prevention, diagnosis and management (2019). Of particular note is an innovative Keep Me Here initiative, created to prevent inappropriate hospital bed moves of patients with complex symptoms of dementia and slow to resolve delirium. Find out more here.

Sustainability Hero Friday 23 June 2023

WINNER: Amanda Van Vuuren, Darshana Dhaka, Mat MacDonald and Connor Brown, Consultant (Anaesthetics) and Junior Doctors at Sandwell & West Birmingham NHS Trust

The team was recognised for identifying an opportunity to increase the number of Total intravenous anaesthesia (TIVA) cases in Theatre 1 City and Theatre 2 Sandwell, and in doing so, having a significant impact on the reduction of volatile-gas based emissions (in support of the NHS long term plan and ‘net zero’ campaign aim for the NHS to be net zero by 2040).

Event recordings

Further information

See also the Clinical Audit Awareness Week webpage.

To find out about the 2022 Clinical Audit Heroes Awards, click here.