Background An increase in the complexity of patient's admitted to the Hospice and a greater use of acute interventions had resulted in staff feeling “too busy to care” with less time to provide high quality care. We recognised the need to change working practices to improve patient experience and staff satisfaction. After reviewing possible models and undertaking a scoping exercise, we agreed to implement the NHS Releasing Time to Care: The Productive Ward as a recognised quality initiative. This was previously restricted to hospital and community use, designed to help teams review working practices and minimise inefficient systems. This was supported at Network level in collaboration with 5 other Hospices.

Aims Increase Time for Caring therefore improving patient experience

Improve departmental/inter-departmental communication

Improve patient /staff environment

Improve staff satisfaction

Approach used Network support

Enhanced team working

Staff and senior management commitment

Collaborative module implementation training

Phased roll out

Evaluation at steering group level

Outcomes Confirmed network funding in conjunction with other hospices

Network training and support to empower staff

Focus on collaborative approach, shared learning experience, making a wider impact than working in isolation

Transparent care provision using quality measures

Efficient staff working practices

Cost effectiveness, efficient use of limited resources

Improvement in communication across all services and local hospices

Awareness of the importance of environment; little wins to improve patient care have a positive effect on staff morale

Improved patient safety and standard of care evidenced by quality measures

Benefit at local, organisational and network level

Application to Hospice Practice Improved collaboration and networking

Useful toolkit that has impacted on time for caring making a difference to patient experience and staff satisfaction

Transferability

Supports integrated working