**An inspirational idea, from a team of Northern nurses and infection control specialists, has proven to be a winner worldwide, saving £millions for the NHS and could continue to save £millions more. **
North Tees & Hartlepool Hospital Trust workers have created a groundbreaking design and award-winning (2022 UK Business Awards) multipurpose medical Community Kit Bag, with successful trials showing that the brilliant bags allow:
- 30% increase in patient visits, 90% reduction in back to base trips, 87% reduction in back to boot trips, 92% reduction in miles travelled and 87% reduction in travel time, SAVING the NHS £2,286. per community nurse annually
- To date 5,500 Community Kit Bags are ALREADY in use across NHS Trusts SAVING the NHS ALMOST £13 million annually (£12,573,000.)
- However … according to NHS England there are 86,000 community nurses, therefore IF ALL 86,000 NHS community nurses, across the 219 NHS Trusts, were equipped with the Community Kit Bag this could be an immense ANNUAL National Health Service SAVING of almost £200 million (£196,596,000.)
Profits from the sale of EVERY Community Kit Bag go back into the NHS and patient care.
The bags have been endorsed by 100% of nurses.
Teesside nurses were part of a top team of contributors who came up with the idea for the bags, the result of a collaboration between frontline NHS district nurses and infection control specialists.
The Community Kit Bags are compact, easy to carry, improve stock management, reduce stock damage and replenishment time, plus provide an all-important sterile surface for patient treatment, vastly improving patient safety.
This inspirational idea for a compact Community Kit Bag came as a result of the lack of an “essential mobile equipment cupboard” when out and about treating patients. The nurses and specialists, along with NTH Solutions (an NHS owned company improving health and social care environments for staff, patients and the public) invented the crucial kit bag to save lives through streamlining transportation of medical supplies and complying with IPC guidance (infection prevention and control). It’s a bag to boost the efficiency of the National Health Service through its patient healthcare, whilst generating important income for the NHS.
A winner worldwide too with international orders being shipped as far afield as Australia.
To date:
- NTH Solutions has provided thousands of kit bags (normal, wheeled, rucksack) to 29 different clients nationwide with orders from 20 NHS trusts.
- The first order for kit bags was 20 bags for Rochdale (Pennine Acute Hospitals) in August 2020.
Tony Wilson, Head of Commercial Innovation from NTH Solutions, said “We were approached by community nurses working within our Trust who wanted a solution to the problem of storage and transportation of medical supplies. They were making many resupply trips to their base, using shopping bags and rucksacks in the boot of their car to carry the supplies to patient visits. Hence, the creation of the Community Kit Bag which has now been trialed by district nurses across the country and transformed the day-to-day efficiency of crucial care workers and medical teams nationwide.“
A kit bag team contributor/creator, said “District nurses have seen many benefits since introducing the community kit bag. Not only is the bag compliant with infection control, but patients feel confident that nurses are in control of what they’re doing with everything they need being visible in one place.”
The aim is to bring a bag boost to ALL the 219 NHS trusts right across the UK with ALL NHS trusts acknowledging the benefits of the revolutionary Community Kit Bags in the near future, allowing hospital standards to be taken into the home and keeping the most vulnerable safe. The Community Kit Bags’ brilliant benefits and excellent efficiency, as well as a huge, positive percentage of financial savings/profit immediately going back into NHS frontline care … successfully saves lives.
