Ashgate Hospice is a charity located in North Derbyshire dedicated to providing excellent palliative and end-of-life care and bereavement support to those with life-limiting illnesses and their families. Ashgate Hospice aspire to be a centre of excellence – working as part of the wider health system with energy, openness and compassion.
At Ashgate Hospice, patients receive personalised expert care through various support services, including, inpatient bedded care, outpatient services, physiotherapy, lymphoedema treatment, counselling, spiritual care, and other creative therapies. The hospice also provides at home care and invaluable support to families, including family support services and bereavement support.
How Vantage Software has helped Ashgate Hospice
Prior to implementing Vantage, Ashgate Hospice were using a combination of paper based forms and spreadsheets for their incident reporting and beyond “Incidents were recorded on paper forms which were then sent to the relevant managers to investigate/sign off prior to forwarding to the central teams for logging on Excel spreadsheets. This meant there was a delay in receipt and investigation of incidents, and forms could easily go astray.“
Speaking to Ashgate’s Head of Clinical Governance and Patient Safety, Lesley Makin, we were keen to learn more about how Vantage software had improved efficiencies and processes at the hospice:
“Timeliness of reporting and actions in relation to incidents across the organisation. Since the introduction of the incident reporting module, we have seen a 30% increase in reporting as staff are confident that the incident forms will reach the relevant managers and staff are also now more aware of the types of incidents/near misses to report.
The system has helped to make the production of reports for Committees and the Board easier to produce and more time efficient particularly for clinical services.”
Do you feel you get good support from the Vantage team, regarding implementing the software, training, and support?
“Yes, very much so. The team are very supportive and always keen to help us develop new modules or provide guidance on how modules can be adapted that have been developed by other organisations.”
What do your staff and management think of Vantage Software?
“Our staff and management team like the system. Some of the staff have used similar systems in other organisations and find Vantage easier to use. The management team are happy with the way we are currently using the system and how we have been able to expand its use over the past 3 years to introduce additional modules.”
What do you think are the main benefits Vantage software has brought to your organisation?
“Improvement in incident reporting and follow up and ensuring the whole organisation follows the same process. The system allows us to document evidence of actions taken in response to incidents, & complaints, and evidence of compliance with CQC Key Lines of Enquiry. Easier production of reports for managers, relevant committees and the Board.”
Is there anything you would like to add?
“I have been extremely satisfied with the support we have received from Vantage and am very happy that our management team opted to purchase this system in preference to another similar system which I had used and implemented in an acute organisation. Vantage are a great company to work with, they are approachable and responsive and will always help and support us with the design and implementation of new modules. I think that the fact that they share other ‘versions’ of modules developed in conjunction with other users and that these are available at no cost is absolutely fantastic. The fact that the system/modules can be designed specifically to meet the needs of your own organisation is a definite positive. The development of ‘e-forms’ also opens additional opportunities for staff and particularly volunteers who may not have access to an organisation’s email system but who can access their intranet to report and raise issues without having to log in.“
