The Patient Safety Awards is now in its 7th year, recognising and rewarding outstanding practice within the NHS and independent healthcare organisations. More than 1,900 people attended the Patient Safety Congress and Awards in Birmingham on 6th and 7th July. Competition was fierce for the sixteen award categories, ranging from work to improve safety in the care of specific conditions, through to clinical leadership, use of innovative technologies and Hospital Trust of the Year.
OxSTar was shortlisted for the category Education and Training in Patient Safety. Entries were judged on innovation, impact, sustainability, evidence base and the multidisciplinary basis of the work done.
We were selected from a number of entries to present to a panel of judges in London, and went through to the final round of the awards. We focused on the training initiatives we have designed to raise awareness of and improve patient safety, and the exploratory work we are doing to involve patient voice in quality improvement projects.
On the evening of 6th July we were up against ten other shortlisted organisations in our category, in a packed event at the International Conference Centre in the centre of Birmingham. We lost out in the end to very worthy winners from the Royal Brompton Hospital, but it was an honour to be in the running alongside such hard working innovators from all over the UK.