In Conversation with Fay Walsh

Fay Walsh, Health and Safety Lead at Benenden Hospital spoke to Pamela Johal, Account Manager at RLDatix, to explain why they decided to make the move to PolicyStat.

Pamela: Can you tell us a little bit about Benenden Hospital and your role?
Fay: Benenden Hospital is a 38 bedded independent hospital welcoming self-pay, NHS, private medically insured and Benenden Health members as patients. I am the Health, Safety and Risk Lead for Benenden Hospital, but I am also an RLDatix Certified Professional, so I am responsible for managing the RLDatix system.

Pamela: How did you used to manage your policies before making the move to PolicyStat? 
Fay: As Health and Safety Lead, I am a policy owner and our old process meant I needed to remember when my policies were up for review, as our processes didn’t provide any automated reminders to make that process easier. After editing and updating a policy, I had to export to PDF to share with other colleagues for review via email. Once approved, the policy then had to be sent to our IT team, again via email, who would then upload the policy to our intranet where staff access our Policies.

From a staff perspective, when searching for policies on our intranet, staff needed to know the exact name of the policy they were looking for or which department owned it, which made finding what they were looking for quite challenging. So, overall, the process was a little clunky for policy managers and wider staff.

Pamela: What made you decide to start looking for a new policy management system and your move to PolicyStat?
Fay: I attended one of the RLDatix webinars that was focusing on policy management, which coincided with the management of our organisational policies being handed over to the Governance Department. This gave us the opportunity to re-think our management process and, having already learnt about all of the benefits of PolicyStat from the webinar, I knew that the system was going to offer us more flexibility and functionality than our old solution, as well as having the added benefit of a direct link to the RLDatix system.

Pamela: What are the key features in PolicyStat for Benenden Hospital?
Fay: We really like that fact that PolicyStat links to our active directory, which means all staff have easy access to Policies and the search function in PolicyStat means staff can search the entire system just using a single keyword. We can also capture acknowledgement of staff seeing policies, so we know exactly who has and, more importantly, hasn’t read a policy. We can target the most relevant policies to the correct staff with PolicyStat. Our old system involved  all staff receiving emails about all policies, even ones that may not be relevant to them. 

Our new workflow in PolicyStat automates the process of approving a policy, which is great and we will be notified when a policy is up for review. And last but not last least, the annual cost is cheaper than our existing system which is definitely a benefit!

Pamela: How do you think PolicyStat is going to benefit you in your role and also the wider organisation?
Fay: I think PolicyStat is a really intuitive and easy to use system. Not only will it allow us to manage our existing policies more effectively, it will also provide us a with an opportunity to expand its use to include management of patient information such as forms, SOPs and patient information leaflets. 

Pamela: How have you found the implementation process so far and do you have any learnings to share with other organisations making the move to PolicyStat?
Fay: It’s been a smooth and logical process so far. The RLDatix team have been really helpful and the implementation has been via Teams, which has meant the implementation team can see everything going on and provides us with flexibility as well.

We’ve found the implementation thought provoking around what we want our policies to look like. PolicyStat provides us with the ability to move from our existing templates and create new and improved templates going forward. 

Something for other organisations to think about is how they segment policies? Whether it’s by department or type of policy for example, is quite important when it comes to getting your policies to the right people. Luckily, we already had a good understanding of this before our PolicyStat implementation started and I think this put us in good stead, so I’d recommend other organisations take the time to really understand this. 

Pamela: Can you tell us how you think PolicyStat can help with CQC compliance? 
Fay: I think it’s about having the right policies and procedures in place, but most importantly I think it’s about making sure policies are embedded, so they’re part of every staff member’s business as usual.  PolicyStat will help us to administrate the management of policies which will keep them up to date and relevant.

“PolicyStat allows us to put all our policies and procedures at the heart of our organisation. Not only has it simplified the editing and review process, it will also make it easier for staff to quickly find the policy they are looking for, embedding them across the organisation and making them part of our business as usual. Having our policies in the right place, at the right time, supports our compliance and makes sure we have the right guidance available for staff.”
Fay Walsh, Health & Safety Lead, Benenden Hospital

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