Teacher Building, Glasgow – 4 September
The Partners for Integration and Improvement team are delighted to host an event which showcases how effective partnership working with the independent sector can foster innovation and good practice across the integrated health and social care setting. The Local Integration Leads are proud of their contribution to service development and improvement having facilitated better outcomes for those who access care and support, and better value for commissioners. The Three I’s is an opportunity to share impact through stories of success and top tips to achieving it.
The event will bring together independent sector providers of health and social care, those involved in commissioning services, senior managers, regulators, colleagues from statutory and third sectors, improvement experts and many others with an interest in service development and person-led care.
As well as key speakers on setting the scene for improvement the event will include workshops, each of which will focus on 4 key themes:
By attending the workshops, delegates will have the opportunity to hear from those directly involved in the development of innovative approaches to service delivery and new initiatives.
This event is a must for those with an interest in innovation and improvement.
A full programme and information on how to secure your place will be available soon.
We are living and working in an inter-connected environment. The use of email for sending messages, exchanging information and assisting with workflow is common place across the public sector. There are many links between the health and care system, but it’s often difficult for health and care professionals to share information. Access to the right information about patients and users of services at the right time is essential to ensure continuity of care.
When patients are discharged from hospital, care homes are still receiving information about that individual by fax, in person or post. Often, key pieces of information are not received at all. This makes it difficult for care homes to prepare for a new patient’s/resident’s arrival or the return of a resident who has been in hospital. As well as being inefficient and slow, paper-based communication is not a secure delivery method.
Lothian Unscheduled Care Board have agreed to fund costs for a one year test of change –Secure emails access for all care independent care homes (circa 103) in Lothian. Each care home will be provided with up to three nhs.net accounts for a period of one year. Care homes coming on stream during the next few months have also been included in this test of change.
CEO’s or equivalent of each individual independent care home must sign the Data Sharing Contract, as must the staff identified as secure email recipients. Following on from this each identified recipient must sign a NHS Lothian User ID Request Form
The provision of secure emails to all care homes in Lothian will markedly improve communications between care homes general practice and social work. Specifically, it will enable faster discharge of patients through the electronic communication of patient assessments and subsequent discussions rather than this being by post.
Secure email will transform how healthcare organizations in Lothian share and work collectively to provide coherent joined up services for the people concerned the public. Good timeous information underpins good care and on-going support.
Care homes will benefit greatly from having a consistent electronic transfer of medical discharge summaries (typically sent to a GP within 24 hours). This will enable the care home to fully prepare their service for supporting people discharged from hospital by preparing for the persons needs well in advance of their arrival.
Pre admission assessments will be carried out and shared timeously thus supporting early discharge to the care home and help improve the efficiency of the discharge process generally.
Secure emails offers the potential to share Anticipatory Care Plans from statutory services. E.g Person moving into a care home. Referrals, assessments, multidisciplinary review summaries, flu vaccine consent forms will be immediately accessible to care homes. Opportunities for Tissue Viability, Health Protection, Care Home Liaison, CPN’s and pharmacy specialists instant ability to network and support and safely communicate sensitive information with care home staff.
Other benefits are the ability to send and receive patient/resident information quickly and securely. No confusion from messages taken over the phone or illegible writing on faxes. Improved awareness of care home staff in relation to information governance rules on handling patient information. Secure paper trail in place for example, time emails were sent, removal of fax machines which are costly and require maintenance. Costs of postage for partnership reduced. Reciprocal communication time by health and social care professionals markedly reduced and this initiative supports positive change in service.
This test of change Secure e-mail access for care homes in Lothian should seek to demonstrate measurable improvement in outcomes either directly to individuals or indirectly through improved service design and delivery. There will be on going monitoring to make sure the project is achieving the desired results and to demonstrate the impact of the project to others; as well as to identify issues or problems as they arise within the project so that actions can be taken to change or redesign the project while it is in progress.
Rene Rigby
Local Integration Lead, Edinburgh City
Sharon Blackburn CBE, is a long-term partner of Scottish Care in our work. In 2015-16 she was awarded a Florence Nightingale Foundation Leadership Scholarship which was sponsored by Garfield Weston Foundation, and supported by her employer , a sister organisation of Scottish Care, the National Care Forum. As part of the scholarship she completed a project on the subject of integration with the sole aim of contributing to the step change that needs to take place for people using services…that’s you and me…not just ‘them’.
Her work included interviews with key players in Scotland. She has now developed an animation to support staff wherever they work to consider ‘how to be the change they want to see’. The animation has been informed by people who use services; their families and so many people who afforded her time across the devolved administrations in the UK to share that which was good and more often that which needed to change. The animation can be accessed at
Sharon writes:
“Integration has been a theme; an aspiration that has travelled with me during my career to date. During that time, in England much progress has been made in delivering person centred outcomes for people using services but we are not there yet. This looks and feels so different depending where the person is in the system. The language that is used is also confusing. The words may be the same but different meanings are attributed.
People who use services do not understand the differences and nuances until it personally impacts upon them or their loved ones. They expect people to share relevant and pertinent information about them; they do not expect each professional to carry out duplicate assessments.
All staff working across health; social care and housing systems need to work together to achieve the best outcomes for people, irrespective of the constraints that can sometimes conspire to work against what they would like to achieve, such as existing policy; cultures of organisations; legislation…the list could go on.
Achieving it will depend on each person in the various systems playing their part. It will require a shift in how nurses; care and all staff across Health; Care and Housing Systems think and behave, this means you and me!.
Ask yourself “do you know what you don’t know…what will you do to rectify this”…”how can you and will you be the change you wish to see?””
I started work as Local Integration Lead for South Ayrshire Health & Social Care Partnership last June and on reflection, almost one year on, “it is the best job ever!”.
No two days are the same; even in the course of one day I have the privilege of sitting in strategic planning level meetings getting my head around ‘the big picture’ and then later on, meeting with the unsung heroes delivering the real quality care – person to person, day by day and one conversation at a time, in our local community and often in very challenging circumstances. A recent example of how the various aspects of my job come together is the Community Led Support initiative.
The South Ayrshire Partnership is one of three in Scotland who are working with National Development Team for Inclusion (NDTi) to innovate the delivery of services using the Community Led Support (CLS) approach. CLS is “designed and driven by practitioners along with local partners and members of the community they are serving…it builds on what is already working, joining up good practice and strengthening common sense, empowerment and trust”.
So as part of this, last Tuesday I participated in ‘Effective Conversations’ Training, which focuses on having a good conversation with people who may need help and support by posing the question “What matters to you?”. Through listening carefully to the response first, we can then identify how the most effective help and support might be delivered.
It was an opportunity to have time to think about what is an effective conversation, and if we were to have one, how might that redefine the care and support which we then deliver.
But the best part for me was the informal discussion and the individual conversations I had, giving me a better understanding & appreciation of each person’s job roles – they represented all sectors of the Partnership, and I reflected afterwards that while we each have a distinct role, it will ultimately be our ability to converse effectively, build relationship and work together in real partnership which will define good quality care that works for the people of South Ayrshire.
Then yesterday, in the discussion at the Partnership’s CLS Steering Group, one of the Community Engagement Officers reported how two Home Care Services staff had come back after a subsequent EC training session requesting further details on “Train the Trainer” opportunities. My heart soared – the Carers who work in our sector respond spontaneously to opportunities to engage in Partnership working and I strongly suspect they are already having ‘effective conversations’ that could transform how we deliver care, and they are waiting for the rest of us to catch up.
Glenda Hanna
Local Integration Lead
South Ayrshire
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