21 Apr 2020
“The commitment to quality improvement shown in this year’s Knowledge Awards applications is impressive and encouraging – particularly in these difficult times" – Chris Gush, executive director of RCVS Knowledge.
James Westgate
Job Title
RVN Louise Northway won the individual award for the second consecutive year.
The winners of the RCVS Knowledge Awards have been announced.
Vale Vets, PDSA and the AHT have been crowned champion practices in the second year of the awards, which are organised to highlight quality improvement (QI) initiatives.
Work undertaken by winners included the development, implementation and assessment of audits, guidelines, checklists and enhanced communication.
These interventions have led to improved patient outcomes, increased client satisfaction scores and increased team unity.
The winners are:
RVN Louise Northway
Mrs Northway, of Wendover Heights Veterinary Centre, won the individual award for the second consecutive year.
She played a leading role in auditing postoperative neutering complications, and using evidence-based veterinary medicine to implement updated guidelines that reduced complication rates by half.
Vale Vets
Vale Vets was recognised for its continued implementation of clinical meetings and QI initiatives.
Vale Vets’ application discussed work on several audits – in particular, postoperative complications and hand hygiene; using pre-existing guidelines; and developing its own checklists.
PDSA
PDSA received the award for its national auditing of pain relief guidelines, cruciate surgery outcomes and incident reporting.
Its work in this area showcased introduction and adherence to pain relief protocols; patient outcomes and reductions in lost-to-follow-up in cruciate surgery patients; and the role of audits in providing an evidence base at a practice level for treatment options.
AHT
The small animal theatre team at the AHT was acknowledged for its work to improve surgical safety systematically.
The team adapted the World Health Organization’s surgical safety checklist to enable success locally in its different patient population systems. The team’s application highlighted continued efforts to secure a whole team surgical safety culture.
Those highly commended are:
This year also saw the creation of a new category, “highly commended – one to watch”, to recognise promising applications from practices laying strong foundations for QI, but that have not yet been able to demonstrate their work is leading to improved outcomes.
Millhouse Veterinary Surgery and Hospital, and Newnham Court Equine Clinic, were recognised in this category.
RCVS Knowledge executive director Chris Gush said: “The commitment to QI shown in this year’s Knowledge Awards applications is impressive and encouraging – particularly in these difficult times.
“Congratulations to our worthy winners for demonstrating the power of QI to make tangible improvements to patient outcomes, and to the newcomers acknowledged this year.”
All applications underwent a blinded review process, which involved assessment by an expert review panel against set criteria related to excellence of care, clinical and financial effectiveness, and the application of evidence-based approaches.
The case examples from both this year’s and last year’s winning projects are available to view.
