Thank You Event 2024: Making Stuff Better Award - Winner
Every year we celebrate our amazing staff and their achievements at our Thank You ceremony. Board members will surprise colleagues at their bases and present them with a hamper, balloons and a certificate for being shining examples of our magnificent staff behaviours.
Making Stuff Better Award – Winner
The Learning Disability Team (Lisa Smith, Named Nurse Learning Disability and Beth Wilson, Learning Disability Project Manager)
The Learning Disability Team (Beth Wilson and Lisa Smith) who work as part of the Safeguarding Team, have spent a considerable amount of time reviewing and implementing the Learning Disability Improvement Standards developed by NHS England.
The four standards were created in conjunction with people and families with lived experience. They are respecting and protecting rights, inclusion and engagement, workforce and Specialist learning disability services. NHS England set out an aim that all NHS funded care should have applied the standards by 2023/24.
The Learning Disability Team created project plans to break down the standards with themes and sub-themes to determine better understanding of what the standards mean for LCH. They have implemented improvements across the organisation to ensure that services and care are aligned to the standards and that service users with a learning disability have the same access to services and outcomes as their non-disabled peers. Improvements also ensure service users with an LD receive high quality services including treatment, care and support that is safe and personalised.
Work undertaken so far include setting up a Learning Disability hub available on My LCH (Intranet) and developing a LD newsletter to support learning and information sharing across LCH. They have also changed the mortality review process to ensure learning from the lives and deaths of people with a learning disability is captured and shared. The Learning Disability Team have also developed a collection of easy read information leaflets and feedback forms which were designed in collaboration with service users who have a learning disability.
Further work and learning from service users around addressing health inequalities is taking place with engagement events planned in collaboration with Locala in June 2024.
They were nominated by Suzanne Slater, Senior Quality Improvement lead and Catherine Hall, Head of Organisational Development and Improvement who said: “The Learning Disability Team have driven the LD agenda within LCH and are passionate about making the experience for patients with a Learning disability better when accessing LCH services. They have made significant improvements and an enormous difference to ensure LCH are not only compliant against the LD standards, but that teams and services are aware of how they can support service users with an LD. They are also shaping and defining what patients with an LD can expect from services and that they receive equity of care. They are championing the LD community within LCH and ensure service users voice is heard within services.”
The Learning Disability Team were announced as winners at our Clinical Conference where Ruth Burnett, Executive Medical Director and Steph Lawrence, Executive Director of Nursing and Allied Health Professionals surprised the team with the award.
