7th October 2024

Celebrating Community Services Week

Today, October 7th, marks the start of Celebrating Community Services week. Designed to ‘Recognise the vital role of community health services in helping people live healthier lives closer to home,’ the week is jointly organised by NHS Providers (the membership organisation for NHS care providers) and the NHS Confederation (the membership organisation for the whole healthcare system in England, Wales and Northern Ireland). Celebrating Community Services week takes place annually, to shine a light on the role, breadth and importance of community health services.

Social enterprises like Your Healthcare CIC provide more than £1billion of vital NHS care across the country, delivered by a range of staff members, including community nurses, district nurses, allied health professionals (such as therapists) and health visitors, while reinvesting any profits in the communities they serve.

The increasing number of people living with long-term conditions means that more people are likely to need support from community health services in the future.
To mark Celebrating Community Services week 2024, we will showcase some of our services that are responsible for keeping residents out of hospital and at home, where they are likely to recover quicker. Avoiding unnecessary hospital admissions also represents a multi-million pound saving to the NHS nationally, when resources are stretched.

Rapid Response

In recent years there has been a growing focus on supporting people to stay well and independent at home, preventing unnecessary admissions to hospital. At Your Healthcare CIC we pioneered a service called Rapid Response, where advanced nurse practitioners and paramedics are called out to see elderly and housebound people at risk of hospital admission, due to events like falls, diabetic emergency and acute infections. Not so long ago all these people would have been taken by ambulance to A&E, but we now have the skills and technology to treat them at home, where they want to be and where they will recover quicker. We offer a similar service to care homes. These services keep thousands of residents out of hospital each year, a multi-million pound saving to the NHS when resources are stretched.

Patient feedback:
“The nurse came to our house today and performed a complete health assessment on my mother. I have an endless list of praise. They were incredibly warm and friendly, very knowledgeable, inspired trust and confidence, had exceptional communications skills and was not in rush. The best nurse I have dealt with!”

District and Community Nursing

The Your Healthcare district and community nursing team proactively supports people in the community, preventing deterioration and keeping them out of hospital. Services include intravenous antibiotic administration and treatment for pressure ulcers and deep wound infections, blocked catheters, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disorder (COPD), heart failure, Parkinson’s disease and diabetes (insulin treatment). District and community nurses also play a crucial role in end-of-life care; with their expertise many people are able to be at home, with family, for their final days.

The service operates 365 days a year, between the hours of 8.30 a.m. and midnight and manages over 50,000 appointments annually.

The team also supports and encourages people with a disability or long-term condition to live independent lives, providing a range of services and treatments to enable them to avoid unnecessary hospital admissions, and to support early discharge when hospitalisation is necessary.

Patient feedback:
“The district nurses were truly amazing. Nothing was too much trouble for them and they showed such respect to my mother and protected her dignity at all times. The support they gave me was exceptional.”

Preventing Falls

Around 250,000 patient falls are reported from acute, community and mental health units in England and Wales annually. They can cause serious injury and death and are estimated to cost hospitals £630 million annually.

According to the Your Healthcare falls prevention team, falls are just a normal part of aging and by identifying those most at risk as early as possible, many can be prevented.

To support early identification of falls risks, our falls prevention team:

• Provides education and guidance to care homes, care agency staff and volunteer staff at Kingston hospital, regarding early identification of factors influencing falls

• Delivers falls prevention talks e.g. at community libraries

• Attends voluntary network groups and better bones events to increase awareness of services, to improve understanding of falls prevention and identify people who would benefit from support

• Completes a multifactorial assessment incorporating environmental, physical, medical and psychological factors contributing to falls risk – completed at home or in clinic settings, to allow greater access to services

• Has recently expanded the criteria of the service to the 50+ age category from 65+ to allow access for patients that are starting to develop balance issues/earlier risk of falling.

Interventions include: exercise programmes at home; referral to occupational therapy service for equipment to minimise falls risk; signposting to relevant services for investigation/treatment to minimise risk factors; medication reviews including prescription of bone medications to minimise risk of fractures.

Patient feedback:
“I have learnt a lot about myself and have changed in confidence. Walking taller without my head bent forward. How to balance better with my weight on all of my foot and not just part of it. I really enjoyed the class and the teachers. It was excellent. Planning on keeping up with the skills I have.”

Proactive Anticipatory Care

Proactive Anticipatory Care, or PAC, was developed with Your Healthcare’s partners in health, social care and the voluntary sector, to provide people living with moderate to severe frailty and multiple long-term conditions who are becoming reliant on emergency care, with joined-up care that helps them to stay out of hospital and have a better quality of life. It helps patients stay healthier and more independent and addresses the full range of social, economic and environmental factors that influence a person’s health and well-being. Meetings to discuss individual patients take place at regular intervals and crucially, include all the professionals involved. Care co-ordinators make sure patients have access to a wide range of services across health and social care, including GPs, community nursing teams, social workers and mental health workers. Other experts who are involved when needed include therapists, cardiorespiratory teams, dementia care teams and hospital doctors. Care co-ordinators are responsible for overseeing all health needs and crucially, will offer support on issues such as social isolation. An aspect of PAC that has had real impact has been the opportunity to look at patients’ situations holistically, which includes looking at the needs of informal carers – often family members.

Urgent Care and Support Service

The Your Healthcare urgent care and support service team supports care homes within the Kingston borough.

The team consists of experienced nurse practitioners with advanced physical assessment skills who assess, diagnose, prescribe and provide advanced nursing care to prevent unnecessary A&E attendances and hospital admissions for patients living in care homes. The team manages over 1,700 appointment each year.

The team has the clinical knowledge and expertise to assess, diagnose and treat a wide variety of conditions such as: asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, abdominal discomfort, head injury, dizziness, catheter problems/associated issues and urinary tract infection, deep vein thrombosis, cardiac problems, back pain, arthritis associated problems and muscular pain, rash, cellulitis and wounds. Palliative care includes advanced care planning, end of life medication, liaison with hospice, GPs and other healthcare professionals.

Partner feedback:
“The support by UCSS helped the relatives understand the most important factors surrounding hard decision making, allowed conflict to be resolved between the family members, and provided the best outcome for the patient.”