Once for Wales Concerns Management Systems team shortlisted for HSJ award

The Once for Wales Concerns Management Systems (OfWCMS) team, in partnership with RLDatix, has been shortlisted in the ‘Most Effective Contribution to Patient Safety’ category within the prestigious Health Services Journal (HSJ) Partnership Awards.

The OfWCMS team and all contributors across Wales have developed a process and system that drives patient and staff safety, enhances collaboration and shared learning.

The development of the new system was initiated as NHS Wales required national shared learning to improve services and reduce harm, with a consistent patient experience across the country. The goal was to ultimately provide a single system with unified data for the whole of Wales that brought together disparate systems for the consistent handling of incidents, complaints, claims, redress cases, risk registers, safeguarding referrals and mortality review records.

Furthermore, records would be linked to provide a holistic picture by department/ward, by the Health Board and across Wales. Integration with patient and staffing systems ensures data would not be required to be rekeyed by different health bodies, improving the consistency and quality.

All healthcare organisations in Wales, including primary care practices, dental and optometry practices were included in the technology initiative, working with the team from RLDatix. These included the 7 Health Boards; 3 Trusts; 2 Special Heath Authorities; the Medical Examiner Service for Wales; Community Health Councils.

In additional, three new major areas of functionality were developed in partnership with NHS Wales to further support Patient Safety. These were a Safeguarding module, Redress module and the new Medical Examiners platform.

The new system went live on 1 April 2021 with early adoption and phased roll out during 2021.

Project benefits ensured that data is now collected in a uniform way including incidents, complaints, claims and mortality records; all healthcare data can be viewed across between health organisations and analysed in a way that makes sense; healthcare organisations can learn from incidents as they happen/claims are made which has been difficult historically due to the different natures of incidents and claims and how they were recorded; Delivery with the Once for Wales framework ensures a cost-effective solution

Jonathan Webb, Head of Safety & Learning said;

“I am delighted that the partnership between NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership, all 15 health bodies in NHS Wales, Welsh Government and our partners in RLDatix has been recognised in the category ‘Most Effective Contribution to Patient Safety’.”

“The Once for Wales Concerns Management System provides a unique opportunity to enable greater consistency in capturing information about incidents and complaints across the NHS and actively includes community services such as primary care GP services, optometry services and dentists.”

“The fact that this partnership has delivered so much improvement already in spite of the challenges of the pandemic demonstrates the commitment of all staff in the NHS.”

The winners will be announced at the HSJ awards ceremony which will be held on 24 March 2022.