HPFT nurse led innovation wins HSJ Patient Safety Award

18 Sep 25

HPFT colleagues were thrilled to win an HSJ Patient Safety Award for their nurse led innovation improving safety and care quality for people living with serious mental illness. The team were also highly commended in another category.

A group shot of five colleagues posing and holding two HSJ Awards. The room has red sofas in the background.

The project, titled Adult Community Mental Health Fundamentals of Nursing Care (FoC) Standards: Transforming Depot and Clozapine Clinics, has revolutionised how the safety of service users is monitored and delivered across 10 community mental health hubs serving over 1,400 service users.

Depot and clozapine clinics provide long-term medication for individuals with conditions such as schizophrenia. These treatments require careful monitoring due to serious potential side effects and the risk of missed doses. The project introduced a digital dashboard that tracks clinic attendance, flags overdue interventions using a colour coded alert system and ensures timely home visits, helping nurses identify and respond to safety risks quickly and effectively with the ultimate aim of preventing relapses in mental health.

Hildah Jiah, Head of Nursing, Adult Community Services Division, said:

“This work has always been about putting service users first by making care safer, more effective, and data informed while also demonstrating the vital role nurses play in community mental health care. We are so proud of what we’ve achieved together with the involvement of our amazing Expert by Experience, and of the difference it is making for both our service-users and adult community mental health nursing”

The project has already delivered measurable improvements:

Reduced missed medication doses and improved side effects monitoring
Enhanced collaboration with public health teams to address smoking and obesity which are key contributors to reduced life expectancy in this population
Increased effectiveness for nursing staff through digital record keeping and real time data of clinic activity.

The innovation was co-designed with service users, nurses, pharmacists, and IT specialists, ensuring that service user needs were central to every stage.

A big congratulations to everyone involved.

Two HSJ Awards. One has HSJ in yellow vertically at the top and the other is next to it and is a glass square with writing on.

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HPFT nurse led innovation wins HSJ Patient Safety Award