Evaluating handover practice in an acute NHS trust.

Area of Science:

• Nursing
• Healthcare Quality Improvement
• Patient Safety

Background:

• Effective nursing handover is essential for high-quality patient care and safety.
• Current national tools for auditing nursing handover practice standards are lacking in the UK.
• Benchmarking nursing handover practices is necessary to ensure consistent, high-quality care delivery.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify evidence-based best practice standards for nursing handover.
• To audit nursing handover practices within an acute National Health Service (NHS) trust in the UK.
• To utilize audit results for quality assurance and identify areas for improvement in nursing handover.

Main Methods:

• A comprehensive literature review was conducted to identify evidence-based best practice standards for nursing handover.
• These identified standards were applied to audit nursing handover processes in one acute NHS trust.
• Data from the audit were analyzed to assess current practice against established standards.

Main Results:

• The audit identified specific areas where nursing handover practices met or deviated from best practice standards.
• Results provided a baseline for quality assurance of nursing handover within the trust.
• Key areas requiring improvement in nursing handover were highlighted.

Conclusions:

• The development and application of evidence-based standards are effective for auditing nursing handover.
• The audit facilitated quality improvement by pinpointing specific areas for enhancement in nursing handover processes.
• Establishing national auditing tools for nursing handover is recommended to benchmark and improve care quality across healthcare settings.