Big win for our urology service
Our urology service at Barts Health was recently awarded with a prestigious PMEA award, a European-wide recognition that celebrates excellence in improving patient outcomes.
The service won the top award in the “Excellence in Organisational Transformation” category for their outstanding work in “Developing and centralising a nurse led transperineal biopsy service under local anaesthetic”.
A transperineal biopsy is a procedure that helps to diagnose conditions including cancer prostate diagnosis, which is a service that our urology team provides to our patients.
When the Covid-19 pandemic hit in 2020, many services across hospitals in the UK had to shut down, including prostate cancer diagnostic services. However, our Urology team found a way to change and quickly adapt to the situation we faced and keep providing the prostate cancer diagnosis service for our patients in an innovative and safer way.
James Green, an Urology consultant at Whipps Cross and Network Director for Urological surgery for all hospitals in Barts Health NHS Trust said:
“We did all we could to keep the service open and we decided to changed the whole way we did things: from the biopsies being done in multiple hospitals to a single hospital, being undertaken by nurses and not consultants and we switched the procedure from being undertaken under general anaesthetic to local anaesthetic to free up theatre capacity.”
“We did all these things very quickly, and during Covid which was incredible. It was a major change but it simplified and streamlined care for our patients”.
In addition, the service undertook a safer procedure as biopsies were undertaken by a cleaner (less risk of infection) transperineal route than transrectal one.
This change, born out of necessity, has proved to have long-term benefits - the new process is now the standard practice and has become embedded in the department and wider network. It has also helped us to cut down waiting times for prostate cancer diagnosis.
This innovative work started at the Gateway Surgical Centre at Newham Hospital, moving the transperineal prostate biopsies from theatres at The Royal London Hospital, where this was done before. Shortly after this work started at Newham Hospital, it was moved to Whipps Cross Hospital, where the service built a tailor-made area to carry out procedures.
The PMEA awards recognise work that delivers identifiable benefits and improved outcomes for patients and recognise the value of responsible business practice.
The service and the changes they made were highly praised by the judges who said:
“Whipps Cross and Newham Hospital’s entry was an absolute masterclass in adhering to a brief. They demonstrated excellence in strategy, measurables and execution. Clearly had a huge impact and really addressed the culture and aims. It was incredibly well put together and a breath of fresh air!”
James added: “We are overjoyed with this win. This was a major organisational transformation change; a real team effort and it was also done during a very challenging time”.
Read the team’s entry to the awards and find more about the changes they implemented.
Meet the award winners (photographed below):
- David Winters, Urology Trainee, Department of Urology Barts Health NHS Trust
- Sally Buttleman, Urology CNS, Department of Urology Barts Health NHS Trust
- Shahid Khan, Consultant Urological Surgeon & Clinical Lead for Urology at Newham
- Paula Allchorne, Lead Nurse for Urology, Barts Health NHS Trust and Chair of European Association of Urology Nursing
- James Green, Consultant Urological Surgeon and Network Director for Barts Health NHS Trust
- Joey Ancheta (not in picture) Advanced Nurse Practitioner in Urology, Barts Health NHS Trust.
