The Christie NHS FT Annual Report & Accounts 2019-20

The Christie NHS Foundation Trust Annual Report & Accounts 2019-20

A year in focus

The feedback we receive is used to guide where we can improve our care. One major improvement this year has seen the introduction of an innovative new £4 million service called MyChristie-MyHealth. This service, partly funded by The Christie charity, enables patients to report their symptoms, general health and quality of life (electronic Patient Reported Outcome Measures or ePROMs) through online questionnaires from home, encouraging a better dialogue with patients and personalised care. Research has shown that follow-up of patients using ePROMs results in an improvement in overall survival and quality of life, as well as reducing hospital stays and improving symptom management. Trialled this year with patients with head and neck and lung cancers, more than 3000 questionnaires have been completed by patients. Feedback has been overwhelmingly positive with 99% saying the service was quick and easy to use, 88% of patients feeling more involved in their care and 82% pleased it improved communication with their clinical team. We hope that The Christie will become the first hospital trust in the UK to roll-out the initiative to all patients, modernising the care we provide whilst making the service more convenient for patients. This year saw us continue to embed our new proton beam therapy service. Following its introduction last year, the number of patients we treat has continued to grow, as we build towards our full capacity for the centre. We were also delighted to start treating patients using a revolutionary radiotherapy machine called the MR-guided linear accelerator (MR linac) which is the first machine of its kind to do real-time MRI scans while it targets X-ray radiation beams at tumours, making it more accurate and reducing side effects. The introduction of both these services reaffirms our status as the largest radiotherapy provider in

Despite the exceptional demands and pressures, from the COVID-19 pandemic in the last two weeks of the year, 2019-20 was an important year of success and progression for The Christie as we continue to develop our vision for a truly world-class cancer centre. Our strategy at The Christie remains focused on four key themes; Leading cancer care, The Christie experience, Local and specialist care, and Best outcomes. Our desire is to always give the very best care and treatment to our patients and we work tirelessly to ensure everything we do is focused on this goal. The best way we know our strategy is working is to listen to our patients, and this year we embarked on a major exercise to get real time feedback from those using our services. ‘One Day, Every Patient’ saw us undertake a huge feedback exercise by seeking the views of as many patients as we could in just one day. Hundreds of patients told us about their experiences with the overwhelming feedback being extremely positive. 96% of patients rated their overall care 8 out of 10 or better, 95% had full confidence in the staff looking after them, 95% of those who needed emotional support felt fully supported and 89% said they were fully involved in decisions about their care. The vast majority of comments praised the staff, the care and the facilities with adjectives including marvellous, brilliant, amazing, safe, welcoming and comfortable among the consistently high praise. Patients also once again rated The Christie as one of the top performing trusts in the country for patient satisfaction in the annual national inpatient survey published by the health regulator, the Care Quality Commission. The Christie was ranked best in the country for five questions answered by the 618 patients who completed the survey and scored ‘better’ than most other trusts in all of the section scores.

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