The NHS is a large family, with each Trust operating separately and making its own decisions. What unites them all is a shared commitment to the highest standard of patient care. This has led to innumerable collaborations and shared projects over the years, and with each Trust fighting its own battles against Covid-19, winter pressures and other challenges, it is easy to lose sight of the incredible teamwork that still goes on between Trusts. The Community Kit Bag was developed by nurses at North Tees in response to their need for a convenient, IPC compliant solution to transporting their supplies around their community visits. Many nurses reported similar issues: having to head back to base for resupply, struggling to store and organise such a range of supplies in a portable way, and often resorting to rucksacks or even shopping bags to manage the load.
The solution was simple and elegant; the Community Kit Bag. Made of antimicrobial material, folding out into a sterile field if needed, the Kit Bag contained everything a community nurse might need, in colour-coded compartments that made it easy to sort and store all supplies. The results were swift and remarkable. The number of resupply trips dropped, stock control became much easier, and the feedback from trials was unanimously positive as nurses reported feeling more organised, more confident and more prepared to carry out their role in the community. Patients also benefitted, with the sterile field of the opened bag reducing the risk of infection, and the reassurance of seeing an NHS-branded storage solution rather than a medley of rucksacks and bags.
The innovation was simple but effective, and NTH Solutions (who facilitated the project) was quick to alert other Trusts to such a quick win. The project got the attention of Sam Sherrington, Head of Community Nursing in England, who recognised its potential and began to support it. In a matter of months, the initial trial had expanded out to a number of other Trusts up and down the country. These trials met with great success. Jeanette Milne, chief matron for Community Nursing at Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust said:
Our district nurses and other team members who work in the community have to take all the equipment they need with them, while still providing the same level of safe, effective and high-quality patient care as our colleagues in hospitals. Our trial of the Community Kit Bag was successful and I think that’s down to the fact it’s been designed by nurses to meet the needs and challenges faced by community staff, such as ensuring they have all of the right supplies and maintaining infection prevention and control measures.
We have updated our staff about this new equipment and we will be rolling them out as soon as possible to support our teams as they look after some of the most vulnerable in our communities in Northumberland and North Tyneside.
Catrin Codd works as Operational Lead for District Nursing for the Swansea Bay University Health Board, and her team also had positive feedback to give regarding their trial:
We have ordered and are eagerly awaiting the delivery of our Community Kit Bags following a successful trial. Our existing bags have served us well, but are coming to the end of their lives. A huge benefit of the new bags is that they have been designed by community nurses for community nurses, so they are highly functional as well as being made from fully wipeable antimicrobial material and they look smart, with logos on the outside which will help the public to identify members of the team.
We’re looking forward to reaping the benefits of using this system, which means we’ll be able to carry more stock with us. The time we would have spent travelling back to base to replenish supplies can now be spent with our patients instead. The system will also allow staff to reclaim their car boots when not in work.
From the initial trial involving a handful of nurses, there are now over 1200 Kit Bags over 8 Trusts in use in communities around the UK, from Tyneside to the Isle of Wight, with thousands more in production, all eagerly awaited by community nursing staff. With the bags branded to each Trust, they provide an instantly recognisable source of reassurance for patients in those communities, as well as an invaluable tool for the nurses using them. With an open network of innovation and collaboration across Trusts, backed by NHS England and Improvement, simple local solutions such as the Community Kit Bag can be scaled to improve patient experience across the country and the Kit Bag is testament to the team spirit of the NHS family. Find out more about our kit bags here or be part of the collaboration and enquire with us to secure this wonderful innovation for your own community nursing team.
