Darent Valley Hospital - DGT - Quality Strategy

Introduction

Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust (DGT) provides a comprehensive range of acute services to a population of 400,000 across Dartford, Gravesham and Swanley, as well as Bexley. Services are provided across two main hospital sites, Darent Valley which provides elective and emergency care and Queen Mary’s, our planned care centre. DGT’s workforce is a committed family of highly skilled, caring, and compassionate staff comprising of over 3,400 individuals from a variety of professional and technical backgrounds, as well as over 170 volunteers that provide invaluable support to the overall patient experience. Our teams are continually striving to improve the quality of the care we provide, the safety and effectiveness of our services and the experience of our patients and their carers. This map shows the population that we serve and the hospital sites that we primarily operate from. We also provide outreach services to a wide range of places in the community including GP practices, community hospitals, care homes and patient homes. Our population is rapidly growing with local developments such as Ebbsfleet Garden City, a Healthy New Town. The population is set to grow by 35,000 within five years and by 55,000 within 10 years. Our strategies for 2020-2025, have been developed in the context of this exceptional population growth, as well as the demographics of the population we serve. The demographics across Dartford, Gravesham and Swanley and Bexley are similar with pockets of high levels of deprivation, a range of ethnicities and languages spoken and a population with a high proportion of both younger and older people.

Performance against our 2019/20 Quality Priorities • Patient Safety: Our priority to reduce MRSA and gram-negative bacteraemias was achieved. We focused on learning from falls, pressure ulcers and medication errors; based on our performance, both falls and pressure ulcers will remain priorities. Progress towards providing 7 day services was also prioritised. Whilst significant progress was made on consultant reviews, consultant-led interventions and diagnostics, greater investment is required to achieve a 14 hour consultant review standard. • Patient Experience: Our patient and public engagement plan launched resulting in improvements in the feedback received from patients. In particular, there was a focus on focused engagement with those with learning disabilities and recording these on our patient administrationsystemtoimprovecommunication and care across services for those patients. New pathways were developed for children and young people’s epilepsy and sickle cell services to support their transition from children’s services to adult services, and work continues to finalise the sickle cell pathway. • Clinical Effectiveness: The Trust successfully reduced mortality for those with fractured neck of femurs through the development of a frailty team. As a proposed hyper acute stroke unit in Kent & Medway, the Trust will continue to focus on improving the quality of the stroke service. The implementation of the Better Births strategy began in 2019 and will continue to be a focus for the Trust in partnership with the Kent & Medway Maternity Network. Our Quality Strategy sits at the heart of all other Trust strategies and it outlines our five quality priorities, with the overall aim to improve patient safety, experience and the effectiveness of the care we provide, enabling us to become an

Outstanding organisation: • Positive patient experience • Harm-free care • Effective care • A culture of excellence • Reducing mortality

These priorities are supported by a culture of continuous improvement, a robust governance systemand a diverse patient and staff engagement plan.

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Trust Strategy Summary