Care home staff and managers met to discuss how to provide better and safer care for individuals as part of the latest learning event from the Greater Manchester and Eastern Cheshire Patient Safety Collaborative (GMECPSC).

The interactive workshop, held at The Life Centre, Sale, on 21 November 2018, explored avoidable harm and how it can impact residents in care homes.

Approximately 10% of our Greater Manchester population are aged 70 years or more and many have care-related needs requiring health and social care support.

Enabling our ageing citizens to live their lives as comfortably and independently as possible, whilst keeping them safe and reducing the risk of ‘avoidable harm’, regardless of where care is delivered, is an important objective.

This introductory workshop for frontline care home staff and managers encouraged delegates to consider what we mean by ‘avoidable harm’, identify the principle causes of ‘avoidable harm’ within the care home setting and discuss some of the unique challenges facing the care home workforce in reducing incidences of ‘avoidable harm’ amongst service users.

It marks the start of an exciting quality improvement collaboration between the GMECPSC, local quality improvement initiatives and care home teams. The collaboration will provide an opportunity to ensure care staff have the necessary knowledge and skills to implement improvements, showcase local improvement projects and share good practice and innovations that can positively impact the safety and care of our elderly citizens across Greater Manchester.

The Greater Manchester and Eastern Cheshire Patient Safety Collaborative is a joint initiative funded and coordinated by NHS Improvement and delivered by Health Innovation Manchester. It is also supported by the European Regional Development Fund.

The PSC can work directly with local teams, supporting them to make sure they have the right skills and resources to implement improvements. The PSC has been set up to support, connect and provide initiatives and activities to drive improvement and ensure patient safety is embedded throughout the Greater Manchester and Eastern Cheshire health and social care community.