Sheffield Teaching Hospitals' Infection Prevention and Control team eliminates paper-based audits after adopting Connexica's CXQUEST platform

Sheffield Teaching Hospitals (STH) NHS Foundation Trust has saved the equivalent of more than five working weeks of nursing time a year after its Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) team moved its clinical audit process from paper to a digital data-collection platform.

The Trust, one of the UK's largest and busiest, covering five sites, 72 clinical inpatient areas and more than 17,000 staff who care for over two million patients annually, has been using CXQUEST since 2021. The web-based platform, developed by data management and business insights company Connexica, allows nursing staff to complete clinical audits electronically from any Trust workstation. The IPC team is the latest to roll it out.

From filing cabinets to a five-minute job

Before CXQUEST, each ward's IPC Champion was required to complete and file paper audit forms every month, covering everything from hand hygiene and PPE availability to the safe handling of blood, body fluids and sharps. With ten different audits required per ward each month, a single area could generate well over 100 pieces of paper a year.

For a trust the size of STH, that added up to what staff describe as "piles and piles of paperwork" spread across "a lot of filing cabinets." Checking it was worse still. The IPC team had to physically locate, cross-reference and verify binders of audits and supporting evidence from every clinical area, every month.

"Clinical areas will complete audits, submit them to our system, and then we have to go and physically look through big folders of paper to say: 'Yes, they did achieve a 100% for the hand hygiene.' And that's quite time consuming," says Angella Kelleher, an IPC Nurse Specialist and Site Lead at STH.

With CXQUEST, that process has been reduced dramatically. "Accreditation's now a five-minute job," says Prasanth Joy, an IPC Nurse and Site Lead at STH. "We can see everything in one single page." A check that once took two hours now takes a few clicks.

The numbers behind the savings

Across STH's 72 clinical inpatient areas and 41 outpatient areas requiring annual accreditation, the switch to CXQUEST has saved an estimated 216 hours of IPC nursing time a year — more than five working weeks for a full-time nurse. For a Band 7 Infection Prevention and Control Clinical Nurse Specialist, that equates to a saving of roughly £4,700 to £5,400 annually.

"We don't have many IPC nurses for a trust our size. This is why CXQUEST is so essential for us," says Janice Byrne, Infection Prevention Control Nurse Consultant and Deputy Director of IPC at STH.

The time freed up is being redirected into frontline work: ward visits, staff education and supporting nursing teams to apply infection control guidance in practice — work the IPC team says directly helps reduce infection rates across the Trust.

Sustainability and compliance gains

The shift has also supported the Trust's environmental goals. NHS England has set a target of a net-zero health service by 2040, with reduced paper usage a key part of getting there. Kelleher notes that each ward previously generated a minimum of 120 pieces of paper a month across its ten required audits, plus accreditation programme copies and audit returns. That paper trail, Byrne says, has now been replaced by "literally no paper and no folders."

CXQUEST has also improved audit accuracy. Because STH requires submissions by the 5th of each month, gaps that were easy to miss on paper are now immediately visible, prompting staff to become "more proactive and disciplined." Interactive features, such as an annotated commode-cleaning diagram highlighting high-touch areas, have improved compliance by removing ambiguity over what needs to be cleaned.

Senior leaders have also gained faster access to data. Previously, requests for infection data from the Trust's executive board or external bodies such as UKHSA and NHS England required manual compilation. "The key thing is the Trust Board can see things quickly. With CXQUEST, I can," Byrne says.

Built for how clinical teams actually work

CXQUEST sits within Connexica's LUCENT360 managed reporting and analytics service, meaning captured data is available for near real-time reporting without additional infrastructure or specialist resources.

"CXQUEST allows us to build forms that reflect the way the IPC team actually works — capturing the right information, in a consistent format, without adding unnecessary admin for clinical teams," says Kevin Strachan, Connexica's Operations Director. "The integration with LUCENT360 means information doesn't sit in a spreadsheet, a paper folder or a disconnected system waiting to be checked. It becomes available for secure, near real-time reporting and analysis, so IPC teams and senior nursing leaders can quickly see what has been completed, where evidence is missing and where action may be needed."

Beyond IPC, CXQUEST is now used across inpatient, outpatient, maternity, theatre and community settings at STH. Staff say the effect on morale has been as significant as the time saved.

"Generally, morale has improved — in terms of the IPC team as well as the link champions," Byrne says. "They feel that they're getting the work done and it's actually helping reduce infection."