Reduction in infection rates leads to shortlisting for national award

The awards take place on 9 July 2018 in Manchester.

Northampton General Hospital has been shortlisted for a national patient safety award thanks to the success of a social media campaign to reduce rates of bacterial infection.

 The infection prevention team has made the finals in the infection prevention & control category of the Patient Safety Awards following a reduction in cases of  Clostridium difficile. Also known as C. difficile or C. diff, it is a bacterium that can infect the bowel and cause diarrhoea. The team worked with the surgical division of the hospital and engaged with relevant staff on Twitter. As a result, the hospital has seen an increase in the average days between cases of C.difficile from 5.1 days to 21.2days.

 Infection prevention nurse, Holly Slyne, explained why this initiative was important for increasing patient safety: “We are very proud of the surgical ward teams for all of their hard work and support in making this project a success,

 “This initiative was pivotal in protecting our patients from C.difficile as it’s helped us to increase the days between cases; this  means we are seeing fewer patients with the infection in the hospital.

 “With such a lot of changes in a short period of time we needed to communicate quickly to staff, so we chose to use Twitter to keep staff up to date with the changes being made. Through retweets, replies and likes our staff could engage with us quickly to let us know of any ideas they had and give feedback on those we had launched. Everyone has really embraced the project and we are thrilled that this work has been shortlisted for a Patient Safety Award.”

 The initiatives implemented included the introduction of squash in water jugs to encourage patients to drink more, helping to prevent the urinary tract infections which can contribute to C.difficile.

 The awards take place on 9 July 2018 in Manchester.