Winners of 2018 HSJ Value Awards revealed

This year’s HSJ Value Awards showcase the fantastic work of NHS organisations and their partners in getting the most out of the NHS budgets and improving patient care.

All of the entries in the 20 categories improve quality, often at little or no cost, or reduce costs. The winners range from two schemes to refurbish and reuse office furniture which might otherwise be thrown away to introducing thrombectomy for stroke patients.

A key theme running through many of the entrants was the desire to make staff member’s lives easier but simultaneously deliver improvements for patients. The single clerking project at Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals Trust which won the acute service redesign award, for example, has meant patients are no longer “re-clerking” when they come into hospital. This has freed up time for senior doctors who might otherwise be involved in this and has meant patients get treatment quicker.

At Mersey Care Foundation Trust service users described their experience of being physically restrained in a project to reduce use of restraint, thereby improving care for patients. At the heart of this was the desire to get staff to want not to use restraint rather than simply telling them not to do it. It won the communication award.

Many of these projects have been very successful in their own organisations – but also offer an opportunity to roll the approach out more widely. At the University Hospitals Bristol FT “high impact” users of accident and emergency are supported rather than feeling rejected by the department. This has resulted in an 80 per cent reduction in attendances among this group, through proactive management. It’s an approach which seems to be capable of replication up and down the country.

HSJ’s panel of distinguished judges had a tough time choosing the 20 eventual winners from the hundreds of entries – which came from across the UK and frequently involved partnerships and joint working between the NHS, private companies and academia.

See the full list of winners below, and read a short profile of each winning project.

• Detailed case studies from all the finalists are available now at HSJ Solutions