Cardiff and Vale University Health Board is celebrating after winning an NHS Wales Award.
Its work with Aneurin Bevan University Health Board and Velindre NHS Trust to develop a dedicated service for patients with cancer associated thrombosis has won the Promoting Clinical Research and Application Award (supported by BMA Cymru Wales).
The service has been developed in partnership for patients with cancer associated thrombosis and is helping to improve care, safety and wellbeing.
Raz Azram, Consultant Haematologist, Cardiff and Vale UHB said, “We are ecstatic to win this award as it reflects five years of work and research into cancer associated thrombosis.
“This research is enabling us to improve the service for patients and we now have up to 30 staff across the partner organisations working together to deliver better clinical care.”
The development of the service was set up following an audit by staff across the three organisations which showed that 340 cancer patients each year are diagnosed with blood clots and 30% of these have complexities that require management beyond standard care.
There was also inconsistent prescribing and inadequate information, support and training given to patients on how to inject themselves which was leading to anxiety and distress.
The three organisations decided to work together to develop a dedicated service that would improve care for patients. It aimed to achieve a 70% referral of patients diagnosed with cancer associated thrombosis, establish two weekly clinics, reduce inappropriate prescribing and waste of drugs, and produce useful patient information leaflets.
Within the first month, 370 patients were referred and of these there was 89% uptake of appointments.
The award today was one of nine presented to organisations across Wales and a full list of winners is available at www.nhswalesawards.org.uk
For the first time ever, a special Humanitarian Award was also presented to 16 NHS staff from across Wales for their efforts in supporting the Ebola outbreak in Africa – and this included three members of staff from Cardiff and Vale University Health Board.
The Award recognised the dedication and impact of staff from health boards and NHS trusts who volunteered to work with affected communities and provide care to people as part of the UK response in Africa.
The NHS Wales Awards are organised by 1000 Lives Improvement, part of Public Health Wales, which supports organisations and individuals to deliver improved health, healthcare outcomes and user experience in NHS Wales.
They were launched in 2008 to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the NHS and recognise and promote best practice across Wales.
More than 160 entries were received from organisations, with 24 making the finals, revealing a high standard of innovative and diverse work that is transforming patient care.
NHS Wales Chief Executive Dr Andrew Goodall, who presented the Awards at the ceremony in Cardiff today, said, “These awards recognise the talent and creativity we have within NHS Wales; people committed to finding new ways to improve the quality and the safety of the care that they provide. They also highlight how important it is to keep improving and learning from examples of best practice that exist across the NHS in Wales.
“I want to congratulate all the nominees and the winners for what they have achieved and their commitment to improve care for patients in Wales.”
