Best Improvement in Quality and Safety winner's showcase

The judges were looking for the project that best combines a clear strategy for improvement with measurable benefits for patients. They also took into account the linkage between organisational change and clinical benefit, novelty of approach, and overcoming barriers to change.

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Inpatient Diabetes Team, Sheffield Teaching Hospitals, NHS Foundation Trust, UK

One in five patients in hospital may have diabetes as well as the condition they are being treated for. The Sheffield Inpatient Diabetes Team impressed the judges through the way they brought together patients, nurses, doctors and pharmacists to track harmful events like blood sugar monitoring errors, and errors in prescribing and administering diabetes drugs. They then introduced “best practice” measures to reduce these errors and their results led to more hospital wards adopting their recommendations. They believe that their relatively simple and inexpensive approach to improving patient safety may be adaptable to other conditions.

Dinesh Selvarajah said:

“We are truly delighted to have been nominated for this award. It represents a lot of hard work on behalf of a large team. Up to one in five hospital patients have diabetes, and so it is essential that we have all the right processes in place to manage the disease and make our hospitals safer for people with diabetes. This can lead to better clinical outcomes.”