A hospital has been highlighted for its commitment to patient safety – after its elective surgery hub was awarded with national recognition.
The surgical centre at the University Hospital of Hartlepool has been named as a National Joint Registry (NJR) Quality Data Provider after successfully completing a national programme of local data audits.
The NJR monitors the performance of hip, knee, ankle, elbow and shoulder joint replacement procedures to improve clinical outcomes for the benefit of patients as well as supporting and giving feedback to orthopaedic clinicians and industry manufacturers.
The registry collects high quality orthopaedic data in order to provide evidence to support patient safety, standards in quality of care, and overall value in joint replacement surgery.
The Hartlepool hospital site, run by North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust, is the organisation’s centre for planned, non-urgent surgical care.
Fantastic recognition for Hartlepool
Richard Jeavons, the Trust’s clinical director of orthopaedics, said: “This is fantastic recognition for the elective hub at the Hartlepool. Patients need to know that the care they are receiving is safe and of the very highest standard.
“The operating theatres there are the Trust’s centre for elective care – a place where we perform the majority of our non-urgent, planned surgery.
“We are delighted with how the centre has been progressing over recent months and this is a further sign of the outstanding work being carried out by the clinical and support teams there.”
The NJR Quality Data Provider certificate scheme was introduced to offer hospitals a blueprint for reaching high quality standards relating to patient safety and to reward those who have met registry targets.
In order to achieve the award, hospitals are required to meet a series of six ambitious targets during the audit period 2022/23.
One of the targets which hospitals are required to complete is compliance with a mandatory national audit aimed at assessing data completeness and quality within the registry.
The audit compares the number of joint replacement procedures submitted to the registry to the number carried out and the Trust’s patient records system to test data accuracy.
NJR targets also include having a high level of patients consenting for their details to be included in the registry so that they can be more easily contacted in future should the need arise.
National Joint Registry Medical Director, Tim Wilton, said: “Congratulations to colleagues at North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust. The Quality Data Provider Award demonstrates the high standards being met towards ensuring compliance with the NJR and is often a reflection of strong departmental efforts to achieve such status.
“As well as being a fundamental driver to inform improved quality of care for patients, registry data provides an important source of evidence for regulators, such as the Care Quality Commission, to inform their judgements about the quality of health services.”
Full details about the NJR’s Quality Data Provider certificate scheme can be found by visiting the National Joint Registry.
Caption: (Left to right) nurse practitioner Leeann Thomson, clinical quality and data management lead Linda Wildberg and theatre support workers Ruth Allen and Deborah Race.