Author Archives: East Sussex Better Together

Green light for ESBT Alliance plans

EBST Alliance partners have approved plans for closer health and social care integration for ‘our patch’ in East Sussex.

During July, plans for closer integration between health and social care were taken to the governing bodies of ESCC, ESHT and EHS and HR CCGs, as full members of the ESBT Alliance, for discussion.  SPFT will also be considering the proposals as an associate member of the Alliance at their Board meeting in September.

We are happy to report that our plans to formalise further health and social care integration for the ESBT footprint were approved. This means we will now strengthen our Alliance arrangement by April 2018, with the supporting legal framework and single leadership creating the conditions for moving towards a single health and care entity for East Sussex in the future.

This is a key milestone that builds on the hard work that we have done together with local people, stakeholders and staff to create the best health and social care system for residents in our footprint.

We consider this legal vehicle to be the best option to tackle this year’s challenges and to make the best use of our resources. This approach will allow us to provide the highest quality care for local people delivered in the right place, at the right time.

More information on the recommendation is available on the ESBT website here.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us.

Play your part in reducing medicines waste

Two local NHS Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) are running a campaign to try and cut down the amount of unused medicines that are thrown away.

It has been estimated that £300 million of NHS prescribed medicines are wasted each year. In the areas covered by Eastbourne Hailsham and Seaford (EHS) CCG and Hastings and Rother (H&R) CCG, the estimated cost of wasted medicines is over £3 million.

The campaign is part of the work of the East Sussex Better Together Alliance; a partnership between the two CCGs, East Sussex County Council, East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust and Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, which is transforming health and social care in the local area by bringing together prevention work, primary and community care, social care, mental health, acute and specialist care.

To highlight the issue of medicines waste, posters and leaflets will be appearing in local GP surgeries and pharmacies over the next couple of months.

The key messages of the campaign are:

  • Check your stock at home before ordering more
  • Don’t tick it on your repeat slip if you don’t need it
  • Talk to your pharmacist or GP if you have any questions about your medicines

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Help Shape the Future of NHS 111

Work with us to make the vital phone service work for you.

If you have a pressing health concern but you’re not sure whether it’s an emergency, you can call 111 at any time, all year round. The important NHS service receives over 7000 calls a week from Sussex residents and has provided a huge relief to the demands on emergency departments and local GP surgeries.

The contract for the current service provider will come to an end in 2018 and we want to use this time to find out how we can improve the service for local people.

Perhaps you or someone you know has had a fantastic experience using the service? Maybe you think the service could provide new communication options for users such as Skype or Facetime. Would you have preferred to answer fewer questions before referral to a medical professional? We want to know!

Whether or not you have used NHS 111, if you have something to say about what the service does well or what could be improved, you can help make a difference and complete our survey by following the link.

All feedback is valuable and will have an impact on how we use money and resources when we come to decide on how the service continues to run when the new contract goes live in April 2019.

Please take the time to fill out this important survey and tell us how we can make NHS 111 work for you. Alternatively, if you would like to receive a paper copy, please contact the 111 Transformation Team on 07711920424 or email them at cwsccg.sussex111transformation@nhs.net.

New Carers Prescription now available

Carer’s health and wellbeing gets new boost with launch of Carers Prescription service to tackle isolation, ill health and mental health issues.

A new Carers Prescription has been launched in GP surgeries by Care for the Carers and the local hospitals to make it easier for health practitioners to refer carers for a range of support. This is especially important as frontline professionals such as GPs, nurses, pharmacists and social workers play a central role in ensuring carers are identified and signposted to support as soon as possible.

Evidence shows that the longer it takes to identify as a carer the more likely it is that carers will struggle without the support and advice they need. This can impact negatively on health and wellbeing, from long-term physical effects such as back pain, to mental health and social isolation.

Care for the Carers (CFTC) will receive the Carer Prescription and will contact the carer within two working days. Carers will be able to discuss how caring is effecting them and will be offered advice and information about support available from CFTC or another partner organisation that supports carers.

How ESBT prioritises carers

There are approximately 60,000 carers in East Sussex and at least 3 in 5 people will be carers at some point in their lives. The ESBT Alliance recognises the needs of carers across all clinical settings by:

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Working in partnership; going forward together

Planning and partnerships workshop brings together local people to plan future community involvement in health and care planning.

Over 120 people came together to share their ideas and experiences at a dynamic Planning and Partnerships workshop in Hastings on 07 July.Co-production is - image

The workshop emerged following an extensive review of how people and organisations are involved in shaping health and care services in East Sussex. It provided an opportunity for anyone interested in being involved to comment on proposals for a new countywide health and wellbeing stakeholder representative group.

“I valued the chance to feed in and share ideas. It was nice to meet new people and it felt like we were achieving something.” Participant at Planning and Partnership workshop.

Participants came from a wide range of organisations and backgrounds, including health and care organisations, the fire service, police, large and small voluntary and community organisations and individuals and carers. In small groups, through lively facilitated discussions, they shared their experiences and knowledge of how people can be effectively engaged in shaping services. They:

  • Agreed the principles and values which would be required for this new collaborative approach to be successful and for co-production between people who commission services, provide services and use services to flourish.
  •  Provided a wealth of ideas on how to ensure the group is representative, how participants can best be supported, and they discussed how priorities and agendas should be set.

“We believe that the more involvement, experience and knowledge we build in to our services the better they will be for everyone.” Paula Gorvett, ESBT Programme Manager

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Nominate a nurse for our East Sussex Better Together Above and Beyond Award

Do you know a nurse that has gone above and beyond the call of duty to support a lovedNurse administers a vaccine one or neighbour? Perhaps their caring nature has extended much further to also help their family members and friends. If so, why not say thank you by nominating them for our special Above and Beyond Public Choice Award.

Our nurses in East Sussex do an amazing job, caring for local people in times of illness and injury whether they are at home, in hospital, or residential care. East Sussex Better Together (ESBT) is celebrating the compassion and professionalism our nurses show every single day through our award scheme.

The winners will be announced at a special event held in Eastbourne in October 2017, and we’re asking members of the public to nominate a nurse that has made a difference to a local person’s life, or the wider community.

You can download the nomination form here. Please email your completed form to HRCCG.YourSay@nhs.net or post to ESBT Nurses Conference Awards, Freepost SEA2472, BN8 2ZZ.

The deadline for nominations is 5pm on Friday, 15 September 2017. We look forward to hearing from you!

Success for ESBT and i-Rock at Healthcare Transformation Awards

East Sussex Better Together and i-Rock mental health service for young people recognised at a national integrated health and social care awards event.

ESBT has received national recognition at the Healthcare Transformation Awards, winning the ‘Fostering Commissioner and Provider Collaboration’ category. This is a national awardHealthcare transformation award winnerss scheme supported by NHS England, NHS Clinical Commissioners and the National Association of Primary Care.

In addition, our innovative i-Rock service for young people in Hastings was highly commended in the ‘Redesign of Care in Mental Health’ category, which is another fantastic achievement.

The ‘Fostering Commissioner & Provider Collaboration’ award celebrates closer collaboration that will allow commissioners and providers to better plan in a coherent way to provide the highest quality healthcare, reduce any inequalities in access to services and to improve outcomes.

The judges said they were:

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Spring Shaping Health and Care – find out how we used your feedback

Following on from our spring Shaping Health and Care events we are pleased to announce the publication of our feedback report. Shaping health and care Eastbourne venue

Shaping Health and Care events are one of the ways that we listen to local people, using what we hear to inform how local health and care services are designed. In May, our spring events saw 100 delegates joining us across the two venues. These were local people, together with CCG governing body members and local health and social care staff as well as attendees from the community and voluntary sector.

Following on from a presentation about the new ESBT Alliance and some interesting patient stories, each event had three facilitated discussion sessions. In the first of these sessions, we looked at a set of criteria for choosing a new health and social care model for ‘our patch’ in East Sussex. The second saw us analysing the ‘ESBT Outcomes Framework’, a document that allows us to measure ESBT’s progress in line with the health and wellbeing results that local people want to see. The final discussion of the day talked about methods local engagement, and how locality link workers can make gathering local intelligence a success.

How we used your feedback

We returned from both events with useful feedback from each discussion. For instance, the group discussions on the checklist for our future ESBT accountable care model, in particular the feedback about the weighting of the criteria, have shaped the development of the checklist. We will now be able to use this checklist with stakeholders to help us to choose the best delivery vehicle to deliver a fully integrated and sustainable health and social care system.

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Integrated Musculoskeletal (iMSK) Service for Hastings and Rother to launch in July

A new integrated service for people with musculoskeletal (MSK) conditions in Hastings and Rother will be launched in July, which will help ensure MSK patients enjoy proactive, joined up care that supports them to live as independently as possible and achieve the best possible outcomes. Hastings and Rother Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) appointed East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust (ESHT) to provide the new service in July 2017.

MSK services include any service that looks at a person’s bones, joints and muscles. ESHT will be responsible for providing the full integrated MSK service (iMSK), this will include orthopaedics, rheumatology, physiotherapy, orthotics and podiatry.

Key improvements will include:

  • A single point of access for all patients with MSK conditions
  • Ensuring patients are seen by the right person, first time
  • Providing patients access to information about MSK conditions through an information hub
  • Empowering patients to manage their own health and care whenever possible
  • Empowering patients to make informed decisions about their treatment throughout their care pathway
  • Improve how patients transition through the iMSK Service dealing with one organisation from start to finish

If you would like more information about the Hastings and Rother iMSK service please email our implementation team: esht.iMSK-project@nhs.net

 

Carers, we say thank you!

Creative cakes and costumes: local Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) celebrate Carers Week and raise money for Eastbourne charity.

Every year, there is a national campaign to raise awareness of the vital role carers play in our community. During Carers Week, local NHS staff held a number of fundraising events for Eastbourne-based charity, Care for the Carers. The team there provide carers with support networks, training and events across the county and offers a platform for them to share their experiences through the Carers Voices Network.

The focus of this year’s celebrations was building supportive communities which look after carers and recognising that they are individuals with their own needs. In line with this, staff at Eastbourne, Hailsham and Seaford CCG and Hastings and Rother CCG raised £154 towards a well-deserved treat for the charity’s hard-working staff and volunteers.

Staff at both CCGs wore purple one day to match the charity’s branding. One of the hottest days of the year didn’t deter some from wearing costumes, including a furry onesie and a bright purple wig!

‘The Great NHS Bake Off’ was held at the end of the week and medically-themed cakes were encouraged. Among the winners was a chocolate sponge covered in jelly bean ‘pills’ and an impressive ‘caesarean-section birth’ cake! All proceeds from cake sales went towards the total raised for Care for the Carers.

Surveys have revealed that the majority of carers in the UK don’t feel valued or that people understand the role that they play. Carers are integral to our local communities and their dedication to an under-appreciated job is inspiring. Without them, the work we are trying to do through the East Sussex Better Together Alliance would not be possible.

To find out more about Care for the Carers, visit their website at www.cftc.org.uk .