Quality and Safety

Quality and safety are at the heart of our services.

We are constantly driving improvement in safety, outcomes, access, efficiency and patient and service user satisfaction.

Wye Valley NHS Trust is regulated by the Care Quality Commission to provide care at a number of locations across the county. 

See our Care Quality Commission compliance status

Infection prevention and control (IPC)

• Infection prevention and control is a critical part of the Trust’s day-to-day work.

• We have a zero tolerance approach to preventable healthcare associated infections and comply with the Care Quality Commission standard to ensure that people are protected from the risk of infection.

• All our staff are committed to infection prevention with strong levels of compliance through audits.
  
  
• Click here to find out more about infection prevention and control and access our IPC annual report.

Friends and Family Test

• The Friends and Family Test, a national Department of Health initiative, was introduced nationally in April 2013.  It requires hospitals to ask patients receiving treatment whether they would recommend the ward/A&E department to family and friends.

• We also introduced the test in maternity services in October 2013 and November for community hospitals and rolled this out to outpatients and community services in 2014.

• The test aims to encourage patient feedback, show patients that their views and experiences matter to the NHS, improve patient care and let people know where they can get the best care. To find out more, visit our in-patients page.

Safer staffing

• Our safer staffing has been published on the NHS Choices website and in our Public Board Papers from June 2014. Read more about safer staffing.

Patient experience walk rounds

• These have helped us further improve our services and the patient experience. Our Board members and senior management team regularly undertake patient experience walk rounds to the wards to talk to frontline staff and patients about quality and safety in our hospitals. This feedback helps us further improve our services and the patient experience.

Patient satisfaction surveys

• The Care Quality Commission regularly carry out surveys with inpatients and outpatients to ensure patients are getting the care and support they need, which helps us understand the patient experience at this trust and continue to make improvements to our services. Latest survey results.

Patient-Led Assessments of the Care Environment (PLACE)

Good environments matter. Every NHS patient should be cared for with compassion and dignity in a clean, safe environment.

The unannounced Patient Led Assessment of the Care Environment (PLACE) inspections are carried out every year at each of our hospital sites (apart from during the COVID-19 pandemic when this was put on hold), as part of a government initiative to drive improvements to hospital environments. 

The PLACE inspections involve local people (known as patient assessors) going into hospitals as part of teams to assess how the environment supports the provision of clinical care, including assessing privacy and dignity, food, cleanliness and general building maintenance and the extent to which the environment is able to support the care of those with dementia or with a disability.  

We recruit and train patient assessors to undertake PLACE assessments at our sites.  Members of the public and patients who have had experience of their local hospital can be a patient assessor, and we provide guidance for the patient assessors to support them undertaking these inspections.  Trust staff are not permitted to be patient assessors.  

PLACE assessments focus exclusively on the environment in which care is delivered and do not cover clinical care provision or how well staff are doing their job. 

Quality Account 

• Our Quality Account details the progress and achievements against the Trust’s quality and safety priorities for the previous year and what the Trust will focus on in the following year.   

Quality, Service Improvement and Redesign (QSIR) Practitioner Programme

• The QSIR Programme is available to staff at the Trust and aims to increase our understanding of improvement methodology, particularly the practical aspects of how to undertake an improvement project on a ward or in a department.  The programme is run over five days and provides evidence-based tools and techniques that can be used by staff to ensure the successful implementation, and delivery of their project.
• The programme attracts a wide range of staff including doctors, nurses, therapists, administrators and managers.  The invitation to attend the programme extends through health and social care across Herefordshire and Worcestershire which results in excellent networking opportunities within the classroom.

Safeguarding adults

• WyeValley NHS Trust is committed to the safeguarding of vulnerable adults. In Herefordshire we have a Safeguarding Adults Board of which we are a member.  Click here to find out more about adult safeguarding.

Safeguarding children

• We are committed to the safeguarding of children and this is given a high profile at our trust. Our staff follow best practice and statutory requirements, with action plans in place to ensure that processes are properly undertaken and updated as required. Click here to find out more about child safeguarding.

Field Safety Notices

Please can all Medical Device Manufactures use the contact details below to send any Field Safety Notices that may be relevant to Wye Valley NHS Trust:

Email: CAS.Alerts@herefordshire.gov.uk

Address: Wye Valley NHS Trust, Franklin Barnes, Commercial Road, Hereford, HR1 2AZ

This is for Manufactures use only.