#TeamOrthoHDH Wants you to join our cause! Broken bone? Joint past its sell-by date? We've got something for that! And it's what our staff dedicate a third of their life helping people with.

The Trauma & Orthopaedic wards (Wensleydale, Farndale and Harlow) at Harrogate Hospital are home to a large multi-disciplinary team of passionate staff, united in creating a better experience for the patients they care for. For reasons I’m sure we all have an opinion about; the needs of the patients and staff are not always met as wards are typically well populated and under resourced. Managing these needs is often difficult. We've identified that some simple changes to moving and handling equipment and the provision of some new technology packages could significantly reduce both the number of patient falls on the ward as well as the number of instances whereby less than contemporary equipment and handling methods are used. We know based on research that if we can improve in these areas, then our patients will benefit significantly and are much more likely to return to the lives they want to live.

So instead of complaining about how poor we are – we’ve decided to start a fundraising campaign in order to better manage or correct these issues. We’re going to be doing lots of fund raising activities like a Christmas raffle with high-end prizes, a British bake sale, a 24 hour cycle, and some other sponsored events. But it’s all going to culminate in a show of unity as many of the staff take part in the Yorkshire Tough Mudder Half in July 2018. We hope to purchase new and improved moving and handling equipment as well as a state of the art technology package aimed at keeping patients engaged at their bedside and therefore reduce falls. Please know that every penny donated will go towards improving our patients journey. We thank you for your generosity and support.

See these pages for
further details on the purchases we are considering:

RITA - The Reminiscence Interactive Therapy and Activities equipment to help better engage patients during long periods of boredom, address the need to keep more elderly patients occupied while staff are performing duties elsewhere, and therefore reduce falls risk, see webpage for an NHS trust report following their use of the system:  http://myimprovementnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Introducing-RITA.pdf

The ReTurn - for helping to move patients if they are unable to walk. It is also very useful for those unable to weight-bear on one leg which is common in orthopaedics and often a cause of back problems for staff using less than adequate equipment: https://www.yorkshirecareequipment.com/p/moving-handling/the-return/

The Raizer - Falls do happen, and we have all the basics in place to reduce the risk, but they can be very traumatic for patients and their families. This equipment is for helping patients safely and easily off the floor following a fall and completely removes the need for manual handling and risk of further injury to staff or patients: https://www.yorkshirecareequipment.com/p/moving-handling/raizer-emergency-lifting-chair/

In addition, we are always open to suggestions on how we can improve our service.