Mersey Care's nursing app wins national digital award

A new digital app, designed by Mersey Care to provide all the information needed by newly registered nurses and healthcare professionals, has won a national digital award for innovation.

The Mersey Care Preceptorship App (Powered by PIOTA), won the Proven Concept category at the prestigious Nursing Times Digital Awards. The team will collect a trophy for their achievement at the  Nursing Times Workforce Summit & Awards on 21 November. They were also a finalist in the Nursing Times 2023 general awards in the Technology and Data in Nursing category.

Designed by Mersey Care’s Preceptorship Development Leads Lyndsey Ford and Nichola Thomason, the app collates all the preceptorship information previously cascaded via physical paperwork, email, intranet and presentations, into one place. This content is aligned to the National preceptorship framework for nursing.

It is believed to the be first of its type in the country and since being launched as a pilot in January 2023, the app has had almost 400,000 user interactions. Its ease of use has also increased the return of documentation which tracks completion of programme tasks by 51 percent.

“We were aware that our preceptees are largely from a digitally savvy generation, so we wanted to develop something which reflected that and made it much easier to access all the information they needed during the preceptorship programme,” said Lyndsey.

“We were aware that our preceptees are largely from a digitally savvy generation, so we wanted to develop something which reflected that and made it much easier to access all the information they needed during the preceptorship programme,” said Lyndsey.

“We’re delighted to be recognised by this award, but the best recognition is the feedback from those using it and have continuously updated its content and features based on what they’ve said about it.”

Some of the features within the app include the following:

• It’s the first mobile device app in the country to bring all aspects of preceptorship, aligned with the national framework, into one easy to access digital place
• A ‘mood check’ feature which asks two questions – how are you feeling and would you like to tell us more? –supports staff to do a quick reflection on the day, records successes for their annual review and allows bespoke additional support to be offered if anyone is struggling
• Ongoing developments of the app are based on feedback from stakeholders, and users in collaboration with team managers and service leads
• An easily accessible PDF library of clinical support documentation to ensure staff have easy access to tools which support the provision of safe and effective patient care
• Information about  the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) principles and HCPC (Health Care Professionals Council) guidance. This includes revalidation and re-registration
•  A ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ section about the preceptorship programme
• Allows those on the preceptorship programme to see the competencies expected in their area and to track as they are validated and approved by a manager, this allows all documentation to be paperless.

Competition finalists pitched their ideas to a panel of judges during the two-day 2023 Nursing Times Digital Forum, earlier this month, who were particularly impressed finance had already been secured for the app and preceptorship in Mersey Care has been transformed from a process to a conversation.