BRADFORD'S hospitals will be striving for perfection during a special week next month testing out ways of improving patient care.

The 'Perfect Week' will run from April 22 to April 29 involving every member of Bradford Teaching Hospital Trust's staff from clinicians to managers.

The Foundation Trust says it will see health and social care professionals across the district working together to solve problems and deliver a real improvement in patient quality and safety.

Its chief operating officer Helen Barker said: “Every member of staff will play a part and we will all work together to ensure our patients are admitted, treated and discharged as quickly and as safely as possible.

“During the Perfect Week we will test new ways of working to identify how we can improve the way that patients move through the various steps in the health and social care system, from the ambulance service and GPs, through the hospital and back out into the community."

The week will be managed along similar lines to the Foundation Trust’s major incident plan with a command centre and clinical management meetings throughout the day to keep a close watch on how the hospital is performing and how the patient experience is improving.

One of the areas being focused on will be trying out different ways of getting patients through the city's main and community hospitals transferred to inpatient beds quicker because of earlier daily decision-making.

Mrs Barker said: “Getting the right flow through the hospital is extremely important as it means patients should benefit from improved care and a better experience, receiving the right treatment, by the right staff, at the right time and in the right place.

"It will help us to achieve the very best standard of care for our patients.”

The idea of the Perfect Week has already been tried and tested in other parts of the country said the Trust's medical director, Dr Robin Jeffery.

He said: “We’ve already listened to what many of our patients, the public and partners have said about where we need to make improvements and now we will be able to test them as the ‘perfect week’ is a concept that has been shown to make changes for the better in many Trusts across the country.”

Mrs Barker added: “Perfect Week is critical for learning how and where we can improve. It is a huge commitment for us and will help us to focus on solving problems and identifying issues which get in the way of delivering high quality care.”