The Belfast Block Room at Musgrave Park Hospital has won the Innovation Award at the Randox Health Healthcare Awards 2018.
This comes weeks after jointly winning the Continuous Improvement Category with the ED Quality Improvement QIP at the Belfast Trust’s Chairman’s Awards.
The multidisciplinary team at Musgrave Park Hospital, led by Dr’s Lloyd Turbitt and David Johnston, have strived over the past year to introduce a new and exciting innovation to improve patient care.
Patients undergoing upper limb surgery can now be safely and effectively anaesthetised using a nerve block. This involves using an ultrasound-guided injection of local anaesthetic around nerves to cause numbness. There is no requirement for a general anaesthetic, sedation or morphine.
The team worked together to establish a ‘Block List’ pre-operative assessment clinic, which has eliminated unnecessary tests and allows patients 1:1 time with their anaesthetist. In addition, a bespoke patient information leaflet was designed and published to ensure patients are fully informed.
Patients are able to have surgery whilst watching their electronic device or listen to music, with no pain and go home the same day. This innovation has made a real impact in terms of productivity, improved theatre throughput, reduced cancellations and allows the patients to go home on the day of surgery.
This new way of working has revolutionised upper limb surgery within orthopaedics. It has been a combination of teamwork and a drive from all involved to create a leading edge service, which puts the patient at the centre. The team are incredibly proud of their work and are looking forward to developing the ‘Block Room’ further.