The Ligature Risk Assessment App at BDCFT

Synopsis

The purpose of a ligature risk assessment (LRA) is for the Clinical Team, Estates and Health & Safety to work together to develop a shared understanding of ligature risks within clinical areas including how risks are eliminated, managed and/or mitigated. The assessment is comprehensive as the assessment team:
• identify all potential ligature points in all rooms within the ward,
• grade the risk presented from each anchor point as per the four risk factors
• assign mitigating actions (where required) to reduce risk

Traditionally the ward LRA is a lengthy documented MDT exercise involving follow up work to record, report and action the assessment and subsequent actions, which were in an Excel document that was susceptible to errors and mistakes.
The objective of the new way of working was to ensure a technological and sustainable solution to undertake LRA’S incorporating:

• App GUI front-end for review and update of LRA’s
• Migration of existing data from current inpatient LRA’s into a data warehouse
• Development of data analytical reports from the LRA data
• In-built future proofing for any changes to Policy approach

The LRA App was born from collaboration between the health & safety team, KPO, and informatics after possibility thinking and coaching workshops. The app was purpose built within the Office365 platform (Sharepoint & PowerApps), from the ground up in-house using Kaisen methodologies to improve the LRA process through technological methods. The benefits of the app are:

• Improved patient safety for ease of access to clinical review of environmental ligature risks
• Real time risk assessments and scoring, on site.
• Real time tracking of score.
• Reduced the time spent on risk assessment allows more time for proactive resolution.
• Automatic notification.
• Automatic action assignment.
• Real time tracking of actions and progress.
• Live view of each area’s risks.
• Automation of impact
• Built in mistake proofing.
• Built in visual control.
• Removed duplication of work.
• Future proofing for any subsequent changes to assessment approac