St George’s secures further funding to improve patient safety in Ghana
Patient safety is always a priority in every healthcare setting but sometimes there are hurdles which need to be jumped to achieve it.
Imagine the problems faced when working in an environment with an extreme lack of equipment, drugs and beds. These are just some of the problems faced by the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) in Ghana.
A partnership set up to share patient safety initiatives and approaches between KATH and St George’s has been part of a World Health Organisation (WHO) two-year programme.
After two years of working together, St George’s have helped KATH to launch projects for hand hygiene and waste management. We have also aided the implementation of the WHO Safe Surgery scheme via the use of patient ID badges in all of their wards and installed a RATE system which enables the staff to monitor safety rates in areas across the hospital.
These projects have made real improvements to patient safety but there is still much more to do so when the two-year WHO programme finished in 2014 St George’s applied to the Department for International Development for further funding.
We are pleased to announce that our application was successful and we are now working to turn KATH into a beacon hospital in Ghana so that other surrounding hospitals can access the education and tools they need to improve their patient safety.
We will continue to update you with the project progress and please check out our Facebook page to see some photos of the people involved in this important programme.
