More awards for the Royal Surrey.

In an earlier blog (14 February) I reported that the Pregnancy Advice Line developed at the Royal Surrey and used across Surrey Heartlands had received a prestigious award. Well it has just received another. It scooped the Innovation in Practice award at the British Journal of Midwifery Practice Annual Awards.in Leeds

And there has been more success for the Royal Surrey. The Acute Frailty Pathway and the Emergency Laparotomy Collaborative have been shortlisted for the prestigious BMJ Awards 2019. The Acute Frailty Pathway is one of six projects to have been shortlisted for the Care of the Older Person Team award. And the Emergency Laparotomy Collaborative is a finalist in the Innovation in Quality Improvement Team category, also facing competition from six other entries.

Well done the Royal Surrey

Car Parking at the Royal Surrey

Car Parking has been a problem for years at the Royal Surrey. It was about to get much worse. Hospital staff have access to about 388 parking spaces on a plot of land near the hospital but Guildford Borough have now withdrawn permission to use it and it will be sold. Potentially that could be disastrous for staff – the hospital has enough problems recruiting and retaining staff !!! However it has been announced that monies have been included in capital allocations for a second floor over an existing area of car park probably to the rear of the hospital. It is expected to provide 400 spaces i.e. sufficient to restore the status quo. If planning proceeds smoothly it could be in operation by June next year.

But is there anything in the offing to actually relieve parking problems? It appears yes.

Firstly there are steps being taken to increase staff parking spaces which will allow more spaces on the hospital site for patients and visitors

·         Talks are well on the way to allow hospital staff to use some of the spaces at the nearby Park and Ride. With so many spaces empty that is just good common sense.

·         Talks are also underway to pay for some further staff parking spaces at another nearby area.

Secondly there are steps to reduce car traffic by improving public transport links.

·         Most significantly park and ride buses will soon stop at the hospital main entrance. The cost of Park and Ride is very much less than hospital parking charges and it will be much easier to find a space there than driving endlessly around the hospital site

·         Finally there is the new railway station proposed for Westborough with a pedestrian link to the hospital. Some way ahead I know but it has at last been approved.

Pregnancy Advice Line.    

The highly successful and popular Pregnancy Advice Line which was developed in the Royal Surrey and is used across Surrey Heartlands (approximates to West Surrey), continues to win wide acclaim. On 5 February it won the National Maternity and Midwifery Festival Innovation Award. The awards recognise the outstanding achievements and commitment by midwifery and maternity staff across the UK. It is among the shortlisted nominations for Innovation in Practice at the British Journal of Midwifery Practice Annual Awards in Leeds. Since it opened in April 2018, the service has been accessed by 10,000 women and is estimated to have freed up hundreds of hours of staff time which would previously have been taken up with phone calls. According to Jacqui Tingle, Deputy Director of Midwifery and Divisional Head of Nursing for Women and Children. ‘It’s a great example of forward thinking which has freed up our staff and hugely increased contact time in the Maternity Unit”.