Cheshire & Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust and Thalamos collect their award at the HSJ Patient Safety Awards 2024
The Mental Health Law team at Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (CWP) have won a highly regarded HSJ Patient Safety Award, winning the Early Stage Patient Safety Innovation of the Year category at this year’s ceremony.
The team were commended by the judges for an innovative approach to enhancing how Mental Health Act (MHA) information is processed - an essential part of delivering compassionate and efficient care to some of society’s most vulnerable individuals. The judges also commented on how the benefits to both staff and patients were evident with the potential for “significant time and cost savings".
Through the digitalisation of the Mental Health Act at CWP, the team eliminated the need for handwritten paper forms traditionally completed by clinicians and Approved Mental Health Professionals (AMHPs), dramatically improving the speed and accuracy of the process. This transformation benefits both patients and their families by ensuring timely and seamless care. The digital solution, known as eMHA, was developed in collaboration with specialist provider, Thalamos.
Anushta Sivananthan, Medical Director at Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (CWP), said: “I am so delighted that CWP and Thalamos have won the HSJ Patient safety award for Early Stage Patient Safety Innovation of the Year. The award has been made possible by the passion and dedication of the team, and the partnership between CWP and Thalamos to ensure people who are liable to be detained have their rights and safety protected. The impact of improved patient safety and reduced administrative burden on clinicians was visible straight away."
Jan Devine, who manages the Mental Health Law Team at CWP, looked back on the initial thinking behind move to digitise. “The vision was to implement Thalamos software across CWP to enable secure electronic completion of Mental Health Act documentation. The digitisation of this system has enabled patients to have ‘real time’ access to their information and updates around the Mental Health Act, their rights, safeguards, and treatment processes.”
This award highlights CWP's commitment to integrating cutting-edge technology to improve patient safety and outcomes, setting a new benchmark in mental health law services.
Thalamos client director, Zoe Seager, said “It has been a true partnership, and the joint working has allowed Thalamos to continually improve our software to further reduce the chance for errors and improve usability. What is even more validating is that CWP is one of the very few Mental Health Trusts recognised in a general category at the awards, and the judging panel rightly recognised the national value and scalability of these evidence-based improvements.”
Find out who all the winners at the HSJ Patient Safety Awards 2024 were.
