A clinical innovation project at CPFT trialling an app to help nurses improve wound care management and recovery for patients has been named as a finalist for three national awards.

CPFT is working with our hosted Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Adopting Innovation Hub, North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust, Healthy.io, Channel 3 Consulting and Health Innovation East to put new technology into nursing practice, with a digital wound care management solution to support people with lower limb wounds.

The Minuteful for wound/Healthy.io project won the Research Innovation prize at this year’s CPFT Staff Awards last week, and the team are finalists for the Health Tech Newspaper’s Best Use of Data and Partnership of the Year awards next week on 12 October, as well as the Nursing Times Workforce award for Best Use of Workplace Technology in November.

Registered nurse Sally-Anne Bradford is clinical lead for the project, providing her expertise as operational and clinical manager for CPFT’s Tissue Viability and Bladder and Bowel services, part of the Trust’s Older People and Adult Community directorate.

Sally-Anne (pictured centre in red, with the project team at CPFT’s Staff Awards) said: “We are delighted that our project has been recognised nationally, showcasing CPFT’s commitment to drive change and healthcare innovation.

“We are working with patients and carers who are helping us track wound progression on the app over time periods.

“Patients have said they gained confidence and felt empowered. Nursing staff can capture and assess wounds quickly, accurately, and easily using their smart phones and the online portal provides an overview of the wound caseload and how each wound is progressing.”

To date, the project team have engaged with two community nursing teams and trained 70 staff in how to use Minuteful for wound (MFW).

Since the project started in June 2022, 463 patients have been assessed, 1,058 wounds have been documented and 5,783 MFW digital wound assessments have been completed.

The team will commence a further pilot on Trafford Ward at North Cambridgeshire Hospital in Wisbech to use with inpatient rehabilitation and end of life care unit staff.

Sally-Anne added: “As a result of easy access to high quality clinical data, the Trust can now identify treatment gaps and monitor patients to see the impact of putting them on the correct treatment pathway for their wound healing and recovery.

“We are evaluating as we go along and hope that this technology can be rolled out to all our physical and mental health inpatient wards to aid nursing and specialist teams in the near future.”

CPFT’s Operations Director for Older People and Adult Community Services Ashton Ntuli said: “We welcome technology that improves delivery of care for patients in the community and saves time for our busy staff.

“This project is ensuring that a new approach is fully tested and evaluated in live care practice, and we are monitoring closely the positive changes and impact across our services to consider next steps for wider rollout.

“Thank you to Sally-Anne for her clinical leadership and all partners involved to bring this project to CPFT, and hearty congratulations on your well-deserved nominations for national awards, good luck for the finals!”

The app and software are helping nursing teams across Cambridgeshire and Peterborough to improve wound care record keeping and care pathways for people in the community, and will also help to address any variations in care with more consistent wound management across the region.

Dr Emily Faulkner, Clinical Innovation Delivery Lead at CPFT said: “This is brilliant news for the team.

“This innovation project has bridged boundaries between organisations in our health system to revolutionise how CPFT provide wound care.

“This award and national nominations reaffirm CPFT’s commitment to innovation that benefits our patients.”

Anyone that would like to work with CPFT with technology or an idea aligned to the Trust’s clinical innovation priorities, is advised to contact our clinical innovation team via the dedicated portal on this webpage: https://www.cpft.nhs.uk/clinical-innovation

Read more about this wound care innovation project: https://bit.ly/3dkuhch