Publish date: 29 September 2025
Northumbria Healthcare lands 5 projects on national awards shortlist
Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, which runs hospitals and community services in Northumberland and North Tyneside, has 5 initiatives on the shortlist for the RLDatix Awards Europe 2025.
These awards recognise health and care professionals and teams driving improvements in care quality, patient safety, and workforce effectiveness.
The shortlisted projects are:
- Go Decaf! - Efficient and Impactful Care Delivery
- Safer Staffing Long Term Improvement Initiative - Legacy of Impact Award
- New wards in the Hospital at Home service – Outstanding Care Across Non-Acute Settings
- Advancing Access to Learning from Patient Safety Events – Learning and Improvement Through Incident Reporting
- Valuing Our Bank Workforce: Boosting Fill Rates and Reducing Agency Spend – Transforming Workforce Wellbeing and Flexibility
The Go Decaf! project showed how a switch to decaffeinated drinks by default can bring a range of benefits to hospital wards. Chief among these was a reduction in toileting falls, alongside calmer patients, better sleep, and reduced agitation.
The safer staffing initiative improved the accuracy and efficiency of reporting on ward staffing levels, supporting better decision-making across the trust’s hospital sites, while technology has also been embraced to improve incident reporting, crucially enabling better staff access to learning from patient safety events.
The Hospital at Home service provides hospital-level care in the comfort of patients’ own homes or where they live. The service has expanded its existing pathways into heart failure, lung oncology, trauma and orthopaedics, and general surgery, providing care for these patients in the community.
Finally, the staff bank team transformed the experience of the trust’s more than 1,500 bank workers, increasing morale and boosting fill rates from 43% to 80%, which has resulted in £11 million of savings on agency staff since 2022.
Kate Thompson, Northumbria Healthcare’s executive director of people and OD, said: “We are delighted to receive these 5 nominations and grateful that we can showcase these varied initiatives from across our organisation.
“The diversity of the shortlisted projects underlines the quality improvement that exists across our trust, where our teams are committed to better, safer and more efficient care for our communities in Northumberland and North Tyneside.”
The winners will be announced at the awards ceremony in Birmingham on Tuesday, 21 October.
Paul Sanders, President UK&I, RLDatix, said: “Congratulations to Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust on your shortlists across five categories at the RLDatix Awards Europe 2025.
“These projects show what can be achieved when teams are committed to making care safer and better for everyone. It is a privilege to recognise your work, and we look forward to celebrating with you in October.”
Media contact
Ben O'Connell, external communications manager