Welcome back to QuDoS in MS

After a brief interlude, Quality in the Delivery of Services (QuDoS) in MS is back to celebrate the work of healthcare professionals working in multiple sclerosis.

With a streamlined nomination process and a renewed focus on sharing your incredible examples of best practice, QuDoS 2019 promises to be the best one yet.

In this, the first of our regular updates on all things QuDoS, we will bring you up to speed on the programme, explain how to be part of it, and re-cap on what it has achieved so far.

What is QuDoS?

QuDoS first launched in 2015 and was designed to showcase the wealth of innovation and excellence on display in MS care, management and service delivery in the UK.

The initiative, which took a break in 2018, is first and foremost about celebrating and learning from the outstanding work of healthcare professionals working in MS.

We are inviting everyone with an inspiring story to tell, a worthwhile case study to disseminate or an exciting innovation to share to get involved.

Entries are now open, and healthcare professionals can nominate themselves or a colleague in any of the following categories:

• Outstanding MS Specialist Nurse
• Outstanding MS Physiotherapist
• Outstanding MS Occupational Therapist
• Outstanding Physician
• Outstanding Pharmacist
• Team of the Year
• Innovation in Practice
• Innovation in Digital Services

All final shortlisted entries will be invited to a recognition event, on November 2nd, 2019, where all short list individuals and teams can meet and share their stories, plus winners will also be announced.

As has become tradition, the evening will be held on the eve of the MS Trust Annual Conference, at the Jurys Inn Hinckley Island Hotel.

QuDoS is organised by pharmaphorum in conjunction with the MS Trust. It has been sponsored by Novartis, Biogen and Sanofi Genzyme.

What’s new for 2019?

This year we have renewed our focus on sharing best practice. We know that the MS world is a community and we want to give you a space in which you can learn from each other.

In the coming months, this website will be regularly updated with information designed to help centres institute their own change. Expect regular newsletters, interviews with past winners on their top tips for change and updates on previously highlighted services.

After the recognition ceremony, winners will be offered the opportunity to help us continue that learning process, by telling their stories and disseminating their case studies through this website.

Over time, we hope it will become a valuable resource hub where healthcare professionals working in MS can access information that will help them to shape their services.

We have also streamlined the nomination process to ensure it doesn’t take you away from doing what you do best – caring for people with MS.

By asking nominees to simply tell us who they are nominating and why in no more than 500 words, we hope to significantly reduce the time it takes to enter.

What’s more, we have replaced the ‘Outstanding MS Allied Healthcare Professional’ category with ‘Outstanding MS Physiotherapist’ and ‘Outstanding MS Occupational Therapist’.

This change will help QuDoS to reflect the true scale of high-quality, person-centred care currently being provided by you, the MS healthcare community.

Why should I nominate?

Over the last few years, QuDoS has become a staple event of the MS healthcare professional calendar.

QuDoS is an opportunity for colleagues from around the country to come together and learn from each other, but also to offer a well-deserved pat on the back.

Tania Burge, of the North Bristol NHS Trust, won the Outstanding Allied Health Professional category in 2017. She said: “It’s just amazing to have won this award. There’s so much that goes on during the year and it’s great to have this event to recognise that.”

The title Outstanding Specialist Nurse went to Sarah White, who is based at St George’s Hospital in London.

She described the award as being a “great honour” and said she was really happy to have been at the QuDoS event at a time when “nurses were doing great things in the face of challenging circumstances”.

The team from Wessex MS Therapy Centre, whose MS Buddy Scheme took the Innovation in Care category for its MS Buddy Scheme, said they were “delighted” to have been recognised for the work they do.

Director of the centre, Rosie Eliot, added: “We are very proud of all the hard work the staff at the therapy centre put in on a daily basis to help people with MS live a quality life.”

You can read more about previous winners and their work on the ‘previous years’ tab.

How do I nominate?

To nominate yourself, your team or a colleague, head over to ‘entry’ tab where you can choose to complete an online entry form or download a template.

You will be asked to write no more than 250 words on who you are nominating, and no more than 250 words on why.

If your entry is shortlisted, a member of the QuDoS team will contact you to arrange a convenient time to gather more information over the telephone.

The deadline for entries is 15^th July 2019. So what are you waiting for?

The gold sponsor is:

The silver sponsors are: