Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust is thrilled to announce its shortlisting in the ‘Driving Prevention and Early Intervention through Digital’ category at the HSJ Digital Awards 2025.
The awards shine a light on teams and organisations driving meaningful change through technology, improving patient outcomes, streamlining processes, and enhancing the overall quality of care. Being shortlisted is a testament to HDFT’s unwavering commitment to innovation and excellence in digital healthcare. This year marks a milestone for the HSJ Digital Awards, with a record-breaking 432 entries submitted.
HDFT has been shortlisted for ‘Reducing inpatient falls by implementing Smart Nurse Call on the new Digital Exemplar Ward’. The DEW is an acute cardiorespiratory ward that was refurbished in February 2024 with the aim of creating an environment that promotes the use of pioneering digital technologies in collaboration with patients and clinical staff.
Inpatient falls are common and associated with a prolonged hospital stay; poor patient experience; significant morbidity and mortality; and an estimated annual cost to the NHS of £630 million. Having a nurse call system is a statutory requirement, however with traditional nurse call systems, patients request assistance by pressing a nurse call button which creates an alert sound and light in the patient’s general ward area. This alert sound and light is only muted when the nurse responds and turns off the alert at the patient’s bedside.
Smart Nurse Call directly links a patient with their responsible nurse through a mobile device. Implementation of this was associated with a significant reduction in nurse response times and a 41% reduction in the number of patients falling on the ward. NHS improvement suggests that each inpatient fall costs the health system £2,600. With an expected 22 fewer patients falling per year through using Smart Nurse Call, this would translate to an annual saving of approximately £57,000 for this ward alone.
Martin Huntley, Chief Clinical Digital Officer (Medical & Dental) at HDFT said: “It is a real honour to have been shortlisted for this prestigious award. Smart Nurse Call is one of a number of digital solutions we have introduced which are making a significant difference in the patient care we can provide across HDFT.
“Cutting-edge digital technology is helping us to improve the patient experience by providing better, faster and more accessible care and also to empower our workforce.
“It is an exciting time to work in healthcare with technology evolving so quickly and I am excited about what the future will bring.”
The winners will be revealed at the HSJ Digital Awards ceremony on Thursday 26 June 2025, a night dedicated to celebrating the brightest minds and most impactful projects in digital health.
For more information about the HSJ Digital Awards, visit https://digitalawards.hsj.co.uk.