Welcome to the latest edition of our Penrose Health newsletter – The Penrose Scroll. If you have any suggestions for the next edition, please let us know here! 👈

Latest News

Professional curiosity in action!

Brain masses (tumors) have varying growth rates, from taking weeks to double in size for a glioblastoma (the most common brain tumor) to very slow growing meningioma (which can take years to grow one millimetre). As you can see, waiting 6 months for a referral for a brain mass can potentially have life changing consequences. And yes, receptionists are not to know the difference between these types of tumors, or any other medical differentials.

However, if a patient is saying that they are expecting an “urgent” referral, that should set off a few warning bells and spark everyone's curiosity, as it had done in one of our pharmacists.

While the pharmacist was conducting a medication review with the patient, they became curious about the long wait for an apparently urgent referral. The pharmacist then investigated further, contacting neuro-oncology, who said that no referral had been made. Not stopping there, this pharmacist sought advice from a Duty Doctor and subsequently called the Neurology Department via Consultant Connect.

As a result of this pharmacist’s proactive approach, the patient was seen in the Emergency Department immediately and proper follow-up arranged.

The key learning point ✨

Everyone must check and respond to urgent referrals. If you suspect, even in the slightest, some indication of hospital system failure - get curious! Look further into it, ask questions and think - if the patient were you, or your mother or brother or child, what would you do?

What you can do is dig deeper, or direct the patient to the Patient Advice & Liaison Service (PALS). That’s far more productive for the patient and you. Imagine if that was done in the first instance? The patient would not have had to come back to reception repeatedly over a 3 month period - saving everyone time and stress.

Okay, but how does the story end?

Happily, the patient’s lesion turned out to be benign…and our hero pharmacist has submitted a quality alert to SEL ICB - something anyone can do; not just doctors. And remember…

"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing." — Albert Einstein 🧐

How’s the Portal working for you?

Learning & Development Updates

Don’t forget, you can find out all about L&D at Penrose Health, including how to make a training request, on our Portal page: Learning & Development!

Upcoming training events

Past events & online learning

And finally, you can check out these past training events and online learning modules whenever you have the time…

What’s new in the Penrose Portal?

🤓 Ask Aunty Portal…

Last month, a question was raised about our Repeat Prescribing policy…

Significant Events Heads Up

"The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing" — Henry Ford

1️⃣ Inappropriate booking

Event: A patient was booked for a blood test at 12:45, when the last sample collection time for the day was 12:50.

2️⃣ Data breach

Event 1: A document for one patient was added to the notes for a completely different patient.

Event 2: A GP created a 2WW referral in DXS for a patient, but included it in another patient’s notes.

As many patients have online access to their records, these errors result in data breaches - one patient may be able to see another patient’s information.

3️⃣ Incorrect escalation for housebound patient with dangerously high BP

Event: Upon visiting a housebound patient and noting an extremely high blood pressure reading (209/94), the HCA contacted the surgery, requesting that a GP sees the patient immediately. Receptionist did not add patient to duty doctor list, and did not consider contacting duty doctor via Teams, but instead cited that doctors do not respond to screen messages.

4️⃣ Not scanning of reports and not following correct procedure for certain types of examination

Event 1: Patient was seen F2F for fostering medical, but the completed form was not copied/scanned.

Event 2: A patient had an appointment to get their DVLA form filled with examination. The GP performing the examination did not record the examination information in the patient’s EMIS notes (assuming the form would be scanned in later). Reception did not scan the form for addition to the patient’s notes, leaving the request open in the Medical Reports team, unable to be closed. Payment was not taken by the Medical Reports before the appointment was booked.

5️⃣ Tsk, Tsk → Tasks, Tasks

Event 1: Tests were requested by secondary service regarding a patient referral. Clinical Admin sent the request to the GP, who processed it, but did not task Reception team to arrange blood test for patient.

Event 2: A task for Clinical Admin was sent to an individual rather than to the team inbox. That individual had left the company, so processing of the task was delayed.

Beyond First Impressions

Holistic Healer has host of hats…

Thank you, Shweta for sharing with us. Surely everyone here has fallen victim at least once to staying up late for a binge-watch on Netflix - that guilt abounds! Now, if we could find some way of putting that singing talent to use at Penrose…🧐…a Penrose talent show, perhaps??? Though, who would be brave enough to compete with your virtuosity?

Check out Shweta’s brilliance in this video - which clearly shows her love of beach walks, too.

The Shout Out 📢 

We think all of our employees are invaluable, but if you think a member of your team deserves a shout-out for something special they’ve done or achieved, let us know here.

We’re recruiting…