Care Charts UK Founder named as one of HSJ’s Innovators 2014

Care Charts UK’s Founder Zoe Harris is delighted to have been included in HSJ’s list of Top Innovators 2014, celebrating ‘those working in the NHS and the wider healthcare sector who have taken innovative approaches that make a tangible difference to patients, their colleagues or wider society’.

The judges worked around some broad criteria: significance, or how big the problem solved has been; impact, or what difference the innovation has made and to what extent it has worked to change things; and support, or how the innovation has fostered and led to other innovation and how it has given inspiration to others.

What the judges said: “In response to her and husband’s experiences, Zoe has invented a great product which is now used by lots of hospitals and care homes.”

Alastair McLellan, Editor of HSJ, said “Our list, we’re pleased to say, is diverse, encompassing everything from top-flight clinicians at the leading edge of their research fields through to frontline staff, patients, managers and simply free-thinking spirits, from within and outside the NHS, who have brought their imagination and creativity to bear. It shows how, for all the NHS can be at times big, unwieldy and bureaucratic, it should be applauded for still allowing space for innovation and “blue sky” thinking…”

Click here for the full list of HSJ Innovators 2014.


Knowledge empowers, but how best to collect that knowledge?

I was at the Alzheimer Europe Conference in Glasgow recently, and listened to a lot of knowledgeable and passionate people determined to make dementia care better. In one presentation, a simple story was told about a lady who had recently moved to a care home with advanced dementia, and was forever wailing and shouting. No-one could identify the cause of her distress until finally, with some close observation, a carer worked out she had toothache. She applied some Sensodyne toothpaste on her gums and, hey presto, the lady stopped wailing. And then the speaker said, as an aside, the husband was able subsequently to confirm that his wife had always suffered with toothache.

This story was presented as a success, but should it be seen as such? Her husband had information that could have prevented her from going through days, even weeks of pain and upset. Information that could have avoided the disturbance of her fellow residents, and the concern of the staff. It didn’t occur to him to mention his wife’s history of toothache, and no-one asked him. I am not suggesting for a moment he was in any way to blame. I know only too well how obvious these things appear in hindsight, but there was nothing in the system to prompt that conversation. The prompt on our Care Charts regarding teeth is “What I’d like you to know about my teeth or dentures”. That may or may not have been enough to trigger a thought in his mind about her requirement for oral pain relief if he had seen it. I suspect dental issues are a significant cause of discomfort or pain in people living with dementia and it may be that a more proactive approach to information gathering would avoid delays such as this poor lady had to suffer, before the cause of her discomfort could be established.

I discovered a similar example today, in this video. A man with advanced dementia spent all day in his room doing absolutely nothing. When his family came to visit they saw that a flight simulator was included in an activities console the care home had invested in, and it triggered a memory. “We didn’t think to tell you this,” said a member of the family,  “but our father was a pilot in the Korean war.” They hadn’t said anything, no-one had asked and it hadn’t occurred to them that this information held the key to bringing their father out of his almost catatonic state. He now spends hours landing planes on the flight simulator, and has started to participate in other activities during the day as well.

Nice story, but what about the weeks, perhaps months he had been there without the information staff needed to coax him back into taking an interest in life? Whether or not there was a flight simulator to hand, the fact that he had been a pilot should have been made available to all staff; at the very least it provided an opportunity for a conversation at some level, perhaps an attempt to interest him in pictures of aeroplanes, anything.

I suspect these stories are the tip of the iceberg, certainly I have heard many, many more. We need to increase awareness of WHY information is collected from friends and families when their loved one moves to a care home, find ways of doing it better, and make sure it is accessible to EVERYONE interacting with the person.

Epsom Hospital puts Care Charts at heart of dementia care

“I couldn’t possibly have hoped for a better result,” said Sue Cook, the Older Persons Assessment and Liaison for Dementia (OPAL) team leader at Epsom Hospital, part of Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust.

We were meeting after their three month trial of the Twist-N-View Display Chart, which they are using to assist in the care of patients with a dementia diagnosis. They have chosen to insert a picture of a forget-me-not into the clear front pocket of the Care Chart, and have included the charts in their training programme so everyone from porters to consultants is aware of the significance of the bright blue flower, and that information about a patient can be found on the reverse.

“I was concerned that staff would see it as yet another task to be completed,” Sue continued. But very soon after the charts were introduced and families were encouraged to complete a chart for their relative, the positive comments started to flow.

“Nursing staff realised that the charts gave them the ability to engage much more quickly with a patient who might not be able to communicate reliably,” said Sue, “because information is immediately available to them, and it gives non-nursing staff like porters an opportunity to open a conversation with the patient, when before they wouldn’t have access to simple information like their favourite foods, or important people in their lives, what they do or did for a living.”

“We had one lady,” Sue continued, “who had nobody in the world, friend or family, and the only piece of information we managed to find out was that she had a cat called Penny. So that went on the chart, and it gave everyone interacting with her something they could talk about. And we sang happy birthday to another patient, because we saw his date of birth on his care chart. Of course, everyone’s date of birth is on their records, but that’s just seen as a bit of admin, whereas something written on the care chart is about the person, a reminder that, even if they can’t speak or do anything for themselves, they have history, family, things they love and hate, like the rest of us.”

The hospital is now rolling the charts out to more wards, with the ultimate aim of incorporating Care Charts into the daily life of every ward across the Trust.

Read about how Epsom Hospital is adopting care charts and other innovations to better care for people with dementia. Epsom Hospital News

To read about the results of trials in community hospitals click here.


How one care home has chosen to personalise its Display Care Charts…


AveryLodge&DailySparkle web

We are always interested in hearing about the ways our charts are being used, and were delighted to hear of the innovative approach Avery Lodge is taking with its Twist-N-View Display Care Charts. This version of the chart has a clear plastic pocket on the front allowing the chart to be personalised, and Avery are using material provided by The Daily Sparkle to create a unique display for each resident, based on the news that was published on the day the individual was born.

“Being able to refer to people’s needs and preferences in their room is really helpful,” commented Robyn, Avery’s Activities Co-ordinator, “and using information from The Daily Sparkle seemed to be a really nice way of personalising each person’s chart. It gives all of us lots of opportunities to start conversations and develop relationships with the people we care for.”

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