A BRADFORD hospital’s innovative children and young person’s service has scooped a top national award.

The Children and Young Persons’ Ambulatory Care Experience (ACE) project, based at Bradford Royal Infirmary (BRI), aims to bring care to young patients in the comfort of their own home and prevent unnecessary admissions to hospital.

At a ceremony in London, the project was crowned winner of the Health Service Journal (HSJ) Improvement in Emergency and Urgent Care Award. The prestigious awards recognise excellence in healthcare.

ACE, which was launched in December last year, aims to bring care to young patients in the comfort of their own home and prevent unnecessary admissions to hospital.

It involves an experienced community nurse team treating children aged from 0 to 16 years-old, at home, under the expert eye of the hospital’s consultant paediatricians, through the use of regular telephone clinical huddles.

NHS Bradford City and NHS Bradford Districts Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) have provided 18 months of funding for the project until April 2019.

Consultant Paediatrician and Lead for Children’s Ambulatory Care, Mathew Mathai, Project Manager (ACE Service) Denise Stewart and Head of Commissioning for Urgent and Emergency Care at the Bradford CCGs, Louise Atherton all travelled to London for the ceremony.

Dr Mathai said: “It’s amazing to have won the 2018 HSJ Improvement in Emergency and Urgent Care award.

“It’s been a fantastic team effort from the Bradford team, from project management to paediatric nurses and paediatric consultants through to commissioners, and I am so delighted not only for us but for Yorkshire as a region.

“The ACE scheme delivers a more efficient service to our patients as it reduces emergency admissions and readmissions to our hospitals, empowers families to manage common medical problems better and enhances our collaborative working with our CCG and GP colleagues across the district.

"Hopefully the project can go from strength to strength and other trusts in the region will adopt it as well.

“ACE has also been a springboard to bridging other gaps between home, community and hospital care. We are now at an exciting stage in the project. We have proved that the ACE model works. There’s still lots to do but we are thrilled with this result.”

Professor Clive Kay, Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust Chief Executive, said: “I am incredibly proud of the achievement of the ACE team and what has been achieved over the past months.

“It has been a real team effort from an amazing group of nurses, doctors, educators, pharmacists, managers, clerical staff and commissioners, all of whom have all helped to drive this development forward.”