Case Study

Royal Oldham Hospital

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Service Disruption Avoided with Rapid Response to Compliance Issues

The Trust has made significant investments in a robust waste management structure to ensure compliance and achieve carbon reductions. As part of this improvement, we’ve diverted a large volume of clinical waste to the offensive waste stream, which presented some challenges. However, through a close partnership with waste management staff and our incumbent supplier Sharpsmart, we’ve addressed many non-conformance issues in waste segregation and by working together, we’ve quickly resolved underlying segregation issues.

Paul Corr – Group Head of Waste and Recycling, Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust

The Challenge

Part of the Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust, the Royal Oldham Hospital is located in the Coldhurst area of Oldham in Greater Manchester.

We received an alert from our offensive waste treatment facility partner regarding a high amount of loose blood content being noticed within the offensive waste stream coming from Royal Oldham Hospital.

This compliance issue could have led to the removal of Royal Oldham from the offensive waste collection list resulting in a suspension of our Refuse Collection Vehicle (RCV) service. Had this happened, Royal Oldham Hospital’s offensive waste would have to be collected in rigid vehicles, increasing transport charges by around 30-50%.

Our Approach

STEP 1

As soon as the Sharpsmart Contract Manager highlighted the issue with Royal Oldham Hospital, they were keen to start immediately on identifying the cause and rectifying it, understanding the importance of compliance and keeping the RCV collection service in place as part of their sustainability strategy. We visited the site and worked with the Waste Officers and Waste Manager to investigate further.

STEP 2

The amount of loose blood involved meant that the departments most likely to be responsible were either theatres or maternity. Working closely with the Theatre Lead for Royal Oldham Hospital, we visited the departments to speak to staff and conduct an audit to help identify the root cause of the issue.

STEP 3

Our investigations showed that the correct procedures were being followed in both the main theatres and the maternity department. We discovered that theatres nine and ten, which are connected to the labour ward and handle labour-related procedures, such as c-sections and emergency labour, had an issue.

They had ordered the wrong type of suction liners which didn’t have the insert for crystallising loose blood. There were also no crystalliser tablets available.

We took our findings to the Theatre Lead who immediately rectified the issue, removing the unsuitable suction liners and replacing them with the correct ones which were in use throughout the other theatres.

The Solution

The unsuitable suction liners were replaced and removed from the procurement list so the same thing couldn’t happen again as the result of a wrong stock order.

In addition to replacing the suction liners, the theatre lead followed up with staff on the correct protocols for ensuring blood crystallisation, and further training was planned for the wider staff at Royal Oldham Hospital.

The Outcome

The staff at Royal Oldham Hospital appreciated how fast we responded to investigate the root of the challenge they were facing and the support we gave. The overall outcome is a testament to the hospital staff being willing to react swiftly to rectify the issue and work towards correct procedures that ensure compliance.

In doing so, Royal Oldham Hospital has saved the RCV offensive waste collection service and maintained its sustainability strategy in accordance with the NHS Clinical Waste Strategy and the Health Technical Memorandum (HTM) 07-01.

This has also helped the hospital keep the lower cost benefits of the RCV collection services, saving them around 30% per annum compared to the cost of the previous transport schedule.

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