Changing Staff Perception of the Manual Handling Team’s Remit

Quality Improvement Poster Download



Background & Problems

The Manual Handling (MH) Team receive numerous inappropriate requests for assistance from staff e.g. ordering mattresses, booking places on mandatory courses, requesting MH equipment, reporting equipment faults, requesting completed Risk Assessments for departments & inappropriate patient referrals e.g. dementia

We would like to ascertain what staff currently believe is the remit of the MH team in order to provide a service which matches & manages staff expectations and requirements.

Aim

Improve Prestbury Ward staff’s understanding of the remit of the MH Team by 25% by October 2018.

Method

• An anonymous (save for designation) questionnaire designed to check current staff knowledge of the MH Team’s remit was tested on 11 members of Prestbury Ward staff. This resulted in changes to the wording of some questions for clarification.
• Version 2 was answered by 10 ward staff members with no further issues.
• Due to changes involving some Prestbury staff moving to Bibury Ward, the next step involved displaying 2 differing posters in Prestbury AND Bibury Wards. These posters outlined some of the responsibilities of and support offered by the MH Team.
• After 1 month, 20 staff members were questioned to see if any improvements in the knowledge of the ward staff re: MH Team remit were observed.

Results

The poster campaign was not effective.

Implications

In order to reach the target (and improve further still), there needs to be further promotion of the MH service.

Feedback was requested on poster designs and comments such as colour have been taken into consideration. Of those who had seen the posters (7 members of staff), 4 had seen/read both and admitted to learning new information from each poster as the designs and information displayed were different.

As at least half of the posters had been taken down, primarily due to the CQC inspection, it would be worth trying this approach again.

Further ideas

Publication of basic information on the MH webpage to reflect how many staff members are in the team, photos, hours worked (small team hours-wise), list of services offered, where to go for common inappropriate questions, phone line saying if you need X, dial Y, which would deflect calls to appropriate departments e.g. Edu & Dev, Tissue Viability, Equip Lib, Med Eng

KWs to reinforce basic info with all new staff and, periodically, through the year.