Building A New Facility And Improving Communication: 4 Lessons Learned At Sheffield Children's

By Susan Ievers, Clinical Lead Matron and Helene Ramsay, Vocera Clinical Support, at Sheffield Children’s NHS Foundation Trust

In April 2018, we opened a brand-new hospital wing at Sheffield Children’s NHS Foundation Trust. The new wing includes three new wards and is more than three times the size of the wards we moved from. Yet it is much calmer and quieter.

Making a move like the one we made – from a ward with multiple patients in a bay to a ward with single patient rooms – can be intimidating for a nurse. We were accustomed to working in close quarters with colleagues just a few feet away at a neighbouring patient bedside.

Within a single day we moved to a new space and introduced a new communication system. This could have been overwhelming for staff.

It took us six hours to move 35 children, 70 beds, and four wards full of equipment to the new wing, and it couldn’t have gone more smoothly.