Welcome to the Right Decision Service (RDS) newsletter for August 2024.
Following the recent RDS outages, Tactuum and the RDS team have been reviewing the learning from these incidents. We are committed to doing all we can to ensure a positive outcome by strengthening the RDS to make it fully robust and clinically resilient for the future.
We would like to invite you to a webinar on 26th September 3-4 pm on national and local contingency planning for future RDS outages. Tactuum and the RDS team will speak about our business continuity plans and the national contingency arrangements we are putting in place. This will also be a space to share local contingency plans, ideas and existing good practice. We would also like to gather your views on who we should send communications to in the event of future outages.
I have sent a meeting request for this date to all editors – please accept or decline to indicate attendance, and please forward on to relevant contacts. You can also contact Olivia.graham@nhs.scot directly to register your interest in participating.
2.National IV fluid prescribing calculator
This UK CA marked calculator is now live at https://righdecisions.scot.nhs.uk/ivfluids . It has been developed by a multiprofessional steering group of leads in IV fluids management, as part of the wider Modernising Patient Pathways Programme within the Centre for Sustainable Delivery. It aims to address a known cause of clinical error in hospital settings, and we hope it will be especially useful to the new junior doctors who started in August.
Please do spread the word about this new calculator and get in touch with any questions.
The following toolkits are now live;
We have updated and simplified this guidance within our standard operating procedures. We have clarified the guidance on how to determine whether an RDS tool is a medical device, and have provided an interactive powerpoint slideset to steer you through the process.
We have developed a guide to support editors and toolkit leads through the process of scoping, designing, delivering, quality assuring and implementing a new RDS toolkit. We hope this will help in project planning and in building shared understanding of responsibilities throughout the full development process. The guide emphasises that the project does not end with launch of the new toolkit. Implementation, communication and evaluation are ongoing activities throughout the lifetime of the toolkit.
To book a place, please contact Olivia.graham@nhs.scot, providing your name, organisation, job role, and level of experience with RDS editing (none, a little, moderate, extensive.)
7 Evaluation projects
Dr Stephen Biggart from NHS Lothian has kindly shared with us the results of a recent survey of use of the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh Anaesthesia toolkit. This shows that the majority of consultants are using it weekly or monthly, mainly to access clinical protocols, with a secondary purpose being education and training purposes. They tend to find information by navigating by specialty rather than keyword searching, and had some useful recommendations for future development, such as access to quick reference guidance.
We’d really appreciate you sharing any other local evaluations of RDS in this way – it all helps to build the evidence base for impact.
If you have any questions about the content of this newsletter, please contact his.decisionsupport@nhs.scot If you would prefer not to receive future newsletters, please email Olivia.graham@nhs.scot and ask to be removed from the circulation list.
With kind regards
Right Decision Service team
Healthcare Improvement Scotland
Key Contact:
Victoria Hilton - Care Home Dietitian - victoria.hilton@ggc.scot.nhs.uk
Lead Clinician:
Gillian Mackay - Advanced Practice Care Home Dietitian - gillian.mackay3@ggc.scot.nhs.uk
Senior Responsible Owner:
Michelle Wardrop - Community Manager - Dietetics - michelle.wardrop@ggc.scot.nhs.uk
Alt-Text added for images so they can be read by a screen reader.
Posters included within the Toolkit are compliant with accessibility guidelines.
Toolkit Authors:
Advanced Practice Care Home Dietitian
Care Home Dietitians
Approved by:
Approved by Care Home Dietetic Team and Care Home Clinical Effectiveness Group at time of initial publication
Review Process:
Content to be reviewed 6 monthly initially, before being reviewed annually going forwards. This will ensure that content which has been added remains relevant, accurate and current.
When the content is due for review, any changes will be approved at a Care Home Dietetic Team meeting.
Ongoing Development:
Care Home Clinical Effectiveness Group will oversee development of the Toolkit.
Community Dietetic Lead Michelle Wardrop has reviewed pathways included within this Toolkit. In addition, she has reviewed all other content within this Toolkit.
Michelle is a member of the Care Home Clinical Effectiveness Group.
All content has been developed within NHS GGC.
Posters developed on Canva Pro. Licence allows for these to be used within Toolkit.
NICE Guidelines and Journals have been used. NHSGGC MUST step 5 pathway (published 2013) has been followed. BAPEN (National Body) MUST Pathway has been followed. ESPEN European Guidelines have also influenced toolkit development.
Care Home Clinical Effectiveness Group have approved the publication (some user testers were part of this group).
Feedback Form is included within About this Toolkit Tile.
Any User feedback will be discussed at Care Home Dietetic meeting. Consultation with Care Home Clinical Effectiveness Group where necessary.
Potential Risk - Toolkit no longer reflects the current clinical guidance.
Control - Regular clinical reviews of evidence
User Testing has been carried out.
4 Staff Users have given feedback. Usability feedback was positive. Two new Tiles were created based on feedback from users.
GGC - Nutrition in Care Homes