In celebration of Community Nursing NHSBN’s Karen Rix interviewed Aaron Watts, Community Nurse at Norfolk Community Health and Care NHS Trust
Karen: Today, we are delighted to have Aaron Watts, Nurse at Norfolk Community Health & Care (NCHC), joining us for an insightful conversation about how he is using benchmarking data in his role and how this is supporting his practice and his trust. Welcome, Aaron and thank you for taking the time to speak with the NHS Benchmarking Network.
Aaron: Thank you for the opportunity. It's a pleasure to be here.
Background
Karen: Please could you tell me a bit about your current role and experience.
Aaron: I have been working for NCHC since September 2019. I started as a trainee nursing associate, studying, and working throughout covid to reach my qualification as a registered nursing associate. Since then, I have been upskilling on the nursing degree apprenticeship course and will reach Band 5 this October.
I have a particular interest in wounds and take pride in providing person focused care in the community. My role allows me to use my clinical skills in patient’s homes, I am gaining lots of experience in many areas of community nursing. I am grateful to my trust for funding both of my courses, I aspire to continue my learning with a master's degree and hope to reach Band 6 as soon as possible.
Benchmarking data and Norfolk Community Health and Care NHS Trust
Karen: Thanks for sharing your journey so far Aaron. Could you outline how benchmarking data is used in NCHC and healthcare more broadly, with a particular focus in nurse education.
Aaron: Benchmarking data provides an insight into the metrics and statistics of patient care. As a community nurse there is particular value in this data being utilised in the provision of care. Such value comes from understanding influences and general trends of your trust and teams and then using this in comparison to others. If certain areas highlight your team as an outlier this can allow for investigation and lead to service improvements.
Karen: Are there any specific areas or processes that you find benchmarking data most valuable?
Aaron: The sheer volume of data and information accessible is valuable, comparing ICB’s is also of interest. I have only recently gained access to the NHSBN (NHS Benchmarking Network) Futures forum, but the prospect of raising questions in this format also seems valuable.
Karen: That’s great thank you, I am keen to understand the limitations you experience in accessing benchmarking data to support your practice.
Aaron: I have recently started to utilise data in my practice. The problem I have found is the data is often at a higher level than what is accessible for myself as a community nurse. Seeing data specific to clinical care plans, such as pressure ulcers, wound care, compression bandaging, bladder washouts, catheters, etc., would allow insight into trends and data that I could use frequently. For example, understanding if certain areas in my trust have low caseloads of bladder washouts or if my team retains pressure ulcers longer on average than other localities.
Karen: Have you encountered any challenges in utilising the benchmarking data you have accessed in your practice? If so, how have you overcome them?
Aaron: The main challenge encountered is finding the time to locate the data that is relevant to my practice. With my clinical lead and clinical operations manager understanding the value of data and seeing its implementation can be beneficial to the team, there has been capacity created in order to dig into the data held by NHS Benchmarking Network. Currently the data is providing opportunities for thinking about quality improvements and changing practice for the better. I would like to see more specific data, as noted previously, regarding individual practices. These niche parts of data could provide insight at a level that is more accessible for front line staff.
Benchmarking data and its contribution to Quality Improvement
Karen: How does benchmarking data contribute to quality improvement initiatives within your area of interest and/or your Trust, do you have examples you can share?
Aaron: I am investigating introducing wound care training that can be utilised by clinical leads and clinical operations managers to give to new staters and colleagues who request further training. There are E-learning and tissue viability courses that are accessible, but these are underutilised. Often, it's the case that community nurse wound care skills and knowledge is developed over experiential training rather than any formal education. Our QI project is addressing this by changing the approach.
I am currently investigating, with the aid of my clinical lead, a general trend of retaining diabetic patients on our caseload longer than others in our wider region. This may be as a result from requiring more diabetic education for nurses or patients or implementing a wider range of diabetic management equipment to promote greater autonomy with some of our diabetic patients. This study has arisen from benchmarking data and may lead to improved patient wellbeing. Data highlighting wound care caseload, QOF prevalence, mean visits, resource allocation etc., could be beneficial for my investigation. I am interested in determining why my locality has an above than average prevalence of diabetes and if there are any improvements we can make in reducing our caseload and promoting patient wellbeing.
Karen: I would be really keen to hear more about this after your investigations, I am sure our readers would also be keen to hear more.
Aaron: Absolutely! We can follow up once they’re complete.
Feedback processes
Karen: Just a few more questions before we end, how do you communicate findings from benchmarking data to your colleagues or leadership teams?
Aaron: Disseminating the information is fed upwards to my clinical lead who utilises quarterly newsletters or emails to our wider team.
Karen: Are there risks of sharing benchmarking data with staff?
Aaron: Staff engagement would be the only risk. With low capacity and straining resources, nurses might not engage with the data being sent, having to focus on their day-to-day job.
Closing statements
Karen: Finally, do you have any content or areas you would like to include? Anything else to share with our readers?
Aaron: As noted, although I’m not sure if there is any realistic way to collect this data, more specific data regarding clinical care plans.
Karen: Thank you so much for sharing your insights into the data with us, Aaron. It has been a pleasure speaking with you and I wish you every success with your career.
About your interviewer
Karen Rix, Associate Director, Network Development and ICB (Integrated Care Boards) Sector Lead
Karen joined the Network in November 2022 and heads the Network Development and ICB teams. Karen previously spent 18 years working within the NHS. As a Deputy Director, Karen gained a wealth of experience in mental health service provision, transformation, commissioning, and performance.
Karen's passions lie within quality and patient focused services. Karen has a strong record of using data and technology to bring about sustainable change and improved patient outcomes.
You can find information benchmarking data relevant to this article in the Members Area community indicators pages and the IC Benchmarker.
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