HSJ awards Wessex AHSN and Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust for reducing ED visits for respiratory patients

We have won a prestigious national award for our role in an innovative project to help patients with chronic respiratory conditions.

 MISSION Asthma and COPD, collaborative projects with the Research and Innovation team at Queen Alexandra Hospital, were crowned winners of the Primary Care Innovation category at the HSJ Awards 2016 on 23 November. Our iSPACE project team was also shortlisted for the Compassionate Care Award, for their work to make GP surgeries dementia friendly across the region.

The MISSION projects identify patients on GP registers at risk of asthma, and then chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), enabling them to receive swift community-based assessment. Wessex AHSN has provided financial and project support to develop and spread the MISSION model across the region.

Results from the asthma scheme included a 67 per cent cut in emergency department visits, while the follow-up COPD project, supported by a grant from the Health Foundation, slashed such visits by 97 per cent in month five.

Judges hailed the “patient-focused” scheme, which also won an award in July at the HSJ Patient Safety Awards.

Professor Anoop Chauhan, Director of Research and Innovation at PHT, and the respiratory clinician behind the project, said: “It is clear that this project has improved, and potentially saved, many lives locally. The team’s hard work and dedication has yet again been commended by national experts and this will only encourage us to do even more.

In his opening speech at the ceremony, HSJ editor Alastair McLellan praised the contribution of all NHS staff. He said: “Over the last 35 years, the HSJ Awards have grown to become the largest celebration of healthcare excellence in the UK – and very probably the biggest healthcare awards in the world.

It has done so for one reason above all: the dedication of NHS staff from every discipline and every sector to drive improvements which benefit patient care and strengthen a service which has become the defining characteristic of this nation.”

Congratulations to all involved for the recognition of your hard work and success.