The hepatology service at Gateshead Health NHS Foundation Trust, which helps patients with specialist advice and treatment for all types of liver disease, has been awarded a level 1 accreditation as part of the Improving Quality in Liver Services (IQILS) programme.
The programme is run by the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) and is designed to improve the safety and quality of care that patients receive.
To be accredited, services must demonstrate that they meet high standards of care. The standards have been developed with patients and clinicians to ensure that accredited liver services are truly meeting patients’ needs. The standards include factors such as ensuring patients are involved in decision-making about their care, monitoring of clinical performance and carrying out audits to benchmark and improve, providing training and support to the staff working in the service and learning from incidents to prevent harm.
Gateshead is one of only eight trusts in the country to achieve level 1, and the first Trust in the North East – and the team has now started to work towards level 2.
Dina Mansour, clinical lead for gastroenterology and hepatology, said: “We are really proud of achieving this accreditation and the fact that it helps us improve the quality of treatment for our patients in what is an ever-expanding service.”
“I want to thank the team for all of their hard work. Their care, compassion and commitment to innovation is outstanding. We couldn’t have achieved this without our supportive team and special thanks must go to Allison Grapes who was joint clinical lead until her retirement last year and Dr Reddy, who preceded me as clinical lead.”