Following my pledge to improve oral mouth care in the trust.Myself and my college have :
Developed a competency for HCA’s to use the new products on patients.
Created an assessment tool for staff to use to indicate care needed.
We are developing a trust mouth care policy. We have created mouth care champion badges for staff who have received training.
On our stroke ward we have been carrying out a trial of products on our nil by mouth dysphasic patients to reduce the chances of a hospital aquired pneumonia developing. As well as collecting this data we are also conducting an audit on antibiotic usage to see what the reduction is when using the new mouth care products.
We presented our case to procurement and it has been agreed that these new products will be available trust wide.To help educate others and improve mouth care we are launching the trusts first mouth care awareness week next week where we will be educating both staff and visitors as to why mouth care really matters.