Homerton Celebrates Two Nominations at the 2025 HSJ Patient Safety Awards
We’re delighted that Homerton Healthcare has been shortlisted for not one, but two categories in the prestigious 2025 HSJ Patient Safety Awards. The nominations illustrate the work going on every day to innovate, learn, and provide safe care for all our patients.
1. Patient Safety Education and Training Award
Project: Embedding PSIRF: Using simulation training to develop staff skills and knowledge around systems learning, human factors and facilitating swarm huddles.
The introduction of the Patient Safety Incident Response Framework in the NHS completely re-built the way that patient safety incidents were handled, shifting the emphasis from investigation – and potentially blame - to learning and collaborative redesign of systems. In preparation for its rollout our Patient Safety and Simulation Teams co-developed a full-day simulation training programme designed specifically for Homerton staff. This immersive training uses real-life scenarios to help staff understand and apply:
- How Human factors influence patient safety
- The SEIPS (Systems Engineering Initiative for Patient Safety) framework – a structured way of ensuring that all factors are taken into consideration when looking at incidents.
- How to facilitate swarm huddles, a key PSIRF learning response which allows teams to reflect on what happened in a blame-free setting to generate immediate learning.
Impact so far:
- Over 80 staff trained, with 40 more scheduled
- Evaluation scores rose from 3.3 to 4.4 (on a 5-point scale) on attendee understanding of human factors, PSIRF, systems thinking, SEIPS, and their confidence in applying systems thinking and talking to staff after an incident.
- Positive cultural shift away from blame and toward learning
- External interest from organisations like NHS England and the North London Hospice
Reflecting on the programme, Linnie Pontin, Head of Quality and Patient Safety, said: “This training has been a game-changer for how we think about and respond to patient safety incidents. It’s helped embed a culture of learning and systems thinking across the Trust, and I’m incredibly proud of the collaborative effort that brought it to life.”
2. Quality Improvement Initiative of the Year
Project: Acute Asthma in the Emergency Department
Led by Dr Colin Wittstock, Senior Clinical Fellow, this project focused on improving the assessment and treatment of patients presenting with acute asthma in the Emergency Department. By simplifying care pathways and applying quality improvement tools, the team achieved measurable improvements in patient care.
Key results:
- Peak flow measurement on arrival increased from 14% to 80%
- Time to administer salbutamol reduced from 67 to 52 minutes
- Time to administer corticosteroids reduced from 119 to 70 minutes
- Improvements sustained for over a year
The project also introduced a priority referral pathway to the Asthma Team and empowered nursing staff to escalate care earlier.
Dr Colin Wittstock
Dr Colin Wittstock shared: “We saw an opportunity to improve care for patients with acute asthma by simplifying processes and empowering our team. The results have been incredibly encouraging—not just in the data, but in how we’ve been able to support patients more effectively and sustainably.”
These nominations are a testament to the dedication, creativity, and collaboration of the teams involved.
The winners will be announced on the 15 of September.