Value in Healthcare Awards: Value and Improvement in Specialist Services

Tameside Hospital Foundation Trust: HALS – Launch of a person centred Alcohol Specialist Service : A life worth living

The judges said: “This is an utterly superb programme with an inspirational team. Despite limited resources it meets all goals and makes substantial savings. This is a sustainable and replicable model that needs to gain national attention, for a national issue.”

The Hospital Alcohol Liaison Service (HALS) was launched in 2013 with the aim of working with patients attending hospital for urgent and planned care that are identified as harmful or dependent drinkers.  

The service attempts to reduce the level of alcohol harm suffered by patients through various methods including specialist assessment and intervention within accident and emergency, supportive treatment plans, referral into community based alcohol treatment services and close management of patients identified as “frequent flyers” to accident and emergency.

Setting themselves a timetable of 12 months for widespread change, the HALS team identified 13 key steps for change. These include assessment of best practice and acknowledgement of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines, forum discussion through clinical governance, 1:1 teaching support for staff and the development of a treatment sheet and prescribing protocol.

HALS has been nationally recognised by NICE and NHS England and to date has seen over 1,800 patients, 70 per cent of whom are still abstinent after being treated via the ambulatory emergency detox clinic. The remaining 30 per cent are still in ongoing treatment. The average length of stay in hospital for HALS patients has been reduced from 4.7 days to 1.3 days.

• See all the winners of the Value in Healthcare Awards 2015
• See the full list of award judges

Finalists

• Hounslow and Richmond Community Healthcare Trust: Integrated Community Response Service
• Mid Yorkshire Hospitals Trust: End of treatment nurse led service for gynaecology and oncology patients
• Motor Neurone Disease Association: Powered Neuro Wheelchair
• NHS Practitioner Health Programme: Providing health for health practitioners
• South West Yorkshire Partnership Trust: Specialist and accessible: How to tackle an oxymoron
• ABMU – Traumatic Brain Injury Service: Co-created task based Neurorehabilitation projects
• Altnagelvin Area Hospital: Establishment of a multidisciplinary led non-medical prescribing clinic
• Hertfordshire Partnership University FT (Community Eating Disorders Service): The development of a cost effective, evidence based and safe community eating disorders service for adults
• Inclusion Healthcare Social Enterprise CIC in partnership with Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Rutland and Nottingham Probation: LiFT – Rise to your potential