Biography
 

Julia Phillips RGN BA (Hons) MSc PG Cert Patient Safety
Project Lead Mortality Review, Clinical Nurse Lead for Sepsis, Critical Care Outreach Team,
Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust
Julia has twenty five years of nursing experience, the majority in acute care. She has worked across the UK and overseas in Australia. She is an advanced nurse specialist with extensive Critical Care and Outreach experience. She has studied to MSc level and is an associate lecturer at Oxford Brookes University. The role of Clinical Nurse Lead for Sepsis at Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust has given Julia a trust wide remit to deliver on CQUIN targets and lead strategic change. As an integrated trust, developments have been made across primary and secondary care leading to improvements in sepsis screening, recognition and management. This has included dissemination of change across two acute sites, five community hospitals and presenting to GPs across the region. Many of the strategies employed are built upon education, audit, national guidance, retrospective case note review and incident analysis.
Sepsis screening and management audits have been used to benchmark improvements in practice. DTNT to IVAB was above the national average highlighting sustained improvement with CQC reporting that good sepsis care was being provided. A regional approach has been adopted in conjunction with the Oxford Academic Science Health Network. Sepsis Ward based teaching packages have been disseminated including the creation of a mandatory sepsis eLearning package. Sepsis half days are delivered across the trust and are open to our partners in primary care and the south central ambulance service. GP referral pathways have been introduced and operational policy revised to support timely recognition and escalation to medical teams. The critical care outreach team support the care of sepsis patients on the ward and aid in dissemination of knowledge.

Julia is driving change through patient engagement and feedback, with real life cases used in teaching. A multi-disciplinary approach to training and education has been adopted across all grades and disciplines including links with our university partners. Aftercare for sepsis survivors includes information and support via our allied health care professionals and the intensive care follow up clinic. Ward based simulation has been used to close the gap between theory and practice and to promote the importance of human factors in the care of sepsis patients. Deteriorating patient champions have also been piloted to assist in dissemination of change and to champion new initiatives in their respective departments. Sepsis remains a trust priority and is reflected in our corporate objectives and supported by our CCG partners.
Over the past six months Julia has lead the revision of the Adult Mortality Review Process to deliver quality improvements in line with national requirements. This has involved transformational change including the introduction of the new role of medical examiner to the trust. Changes to mortality review now include independent scrutiny of all deaths, meaningful engagement with bereaved relatives/carers and the use of the royal college of physicians structured judgement review methodology for mortality reviews. Future work will focus on learning from deaths consisting of theme analysis over phases of care to inform subsequent quality improvements for trust wide learning and beyond.