STAFF trying to lower incidents of cardiac arrest at the John Radcliffe Hospital have found a problem shared can be a problem solved.

About 80 members of staff in two wards at the Headington hospital began holding regular daily 'safety huddles' last year as a pilot project.

By meeting up several times a day to hold face-to-face discussions about their patients, the group aimed to achieve a 20 per cent drop in cardiac arrests over two years.

But just 12 months into the project, both wards have already met their target.

Ann Thompson, the resuscitation officer who is leading the pilot, said this would equate to preventing eight to 10 cardiac arrests per year.

She said: "What we know about patients in hospital is that cardiac arrest is often an end point; it's not sudden.

"It often happens after there has been a period of deterioration."

Huddles are now taking place with different frequency on different wards, from every four hours to twice a day, led by the nurse in charge of the shift.

Doctors and nurses use the time to highlight concerns about patients whose condition they feel might be deteriorating so those most at risk can be prioritised.

Ms Thompson said: "Because it’s a pilot project it’s an evolving thing, and some wards have decided to hold them more frequently, stopping work for five minutes and getting everyone together for a quick catch-up."

The wards that have achieved their target of a 20 per cent reduction are 6a for vascular surgery, and 7c, the acute general medicine women’s ward.

There are a total of 46 staff, 41 clinical and five non-clinical, working on 6a and 34 members of staff, 28 clinical six non-clinical, on 7c.

A reduction in cardiac arrests has also been reported since Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust began using an electronic observation system.

The iPad-based System for Electronic Notification and Documentation (SEND) was rolled out last year and records patient vital signs, replacing bedside paper charts.

Ms Thompson said: "When you entered observations manually there was an increased risk of user error.

"Now SEND does it automatically and tells you the action to take now, based on the score. There’s more certainty and it’s more obvious which patients to prioritise."

There are now plans to roll out safety huddles to other parts of the JR with high incidence of cardiac arrests, such as in neurosciences and on surgical wards.