16 July 2024
A project run at Velindre Cancer Centre has been nominated for one of this year's NHS Wales Awards.
The work which aims to improve the documentation of the mobility status of patients with metastatic spinal cord compression (MSCC) has been shortlisted in the Safe Care Award category.
Kate Williams, a Highly Specialist Physiotherapist, embarked on the project as part of her MSc dissertation and says:
"The documentation of mobility status for patients with MSCC was an important one to address, to prevent harm to the patient or the staff caring for them.
"We used a quality improvement methodology to make simple changes to our existing documentation to ensure we had the correct information about a patients mobility status before they arrived in Velindre for treatment.
"Safe patient care was always at the heart of this project, and I hope it has gone some way to ensuring that patients with MSCC always receive the highest quality care at Velindre Cancer Centre."
Before the project was implemented in January 2022, patients with MSCC would be admitted to the Cancer Centre with little information regarding their mobility status.
This meant staff at Velindre wouldn't know how to safely mobilise the patients which could result in prolonged bed rest or inappropriate mobilisation, leading to the potential for harm.
By the end of the project, 91% of patients with MSCC admitted to the Cancer Centre had their mobility status documented in their medical notes within four hours of admission, up from 38% prior to its implementation.
This is now routine practice for patients with MSCC as part of a modified handover checklist between Velindre and the local health boards.
