The Bradford’s hospital innovative children and young person’s service has received a top national award.
The Children’s and Young Person’s Ambulatory Care Experience (ACE) project is based at Bradford Royal Infirmary and aims to bring care to young patients in the comfort of their own home to prevent unnecessary admissions to hospital.
The project was crowned winner of the Health Service Journal (HSJ) Improvement in Emergency and Urgent Care Award in a ceremony in London. The prestigious awards recognise excellence in healthcare.
ACE, which was launched in December, involves an experienced community nurse team treating children aged from 0-16 year-olds at home, watched over by the expert eye of the hospital’s consultant paediatricians, through the use of regular telephone clinical huddles.
NHS Bradford Districts Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) and NHS Bradford City have granted 18 months of funding for the project until April 2019.
Consultant Paediatrician and Lead for Children’s Ambulatory Care, Mathew Mathai, Project Manager (ACE Service) Denise Stewart and Head of Commissioning for Urgent and Emergency Care at the Bradford CCGs, Louise Atherton all travelled to London for the ceremony.
Dr Mathai said: “It’s amazing to have won the 2018 HSJ Improvement in Emergency and Urgent Care award.
“It’s been a fantastic team effort from the Bradford team, from project management to paediatric nurses and paediatric consultants through to commissioners, and I am so delighted not only for us but for Yorkshire as a region.
“The ACE scheme delivers a more efficient service to our patients as it reduces emergency admissions and re-admissions to our hospitals, empowers families to manage common medical problems better and enhances our collaborative working with our CCG and GP colleagues across the district.
“Hopefully the project can go from strength to strength and other trusts in the region will adopt it as well.
“ACE has also been a springboard to bridging other gaps between home, community and hospital care. We are now at an exciting stage in the project. We have proved that the ACE model works. There’s still lots to do but we are thrilled with this result.”
Professor Clive Kay, Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust Chief Executive, said: “I am incredibly proud of the achievement of the ACE team and what has been achieved over the past months.
“It has been a real team effort from an amazing group of nurses, doctors, educators, pharmacists, managers, clerical staff and commissioners, all of whom have all helped to drive this development forward.”
