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Streamlining the assessment and delivery process for Continuing Healthcare, and the package of ongoing care that it may be deemed an individual is entitled to, is of growing importance with an increasing demand from an ageing population.
In a report published in January 2018 by the NHS Clinical Commissioners titled NHS continuing healthcare: Effective commissioning approaches, three key reasons are put forward as to why Continuing Healthcare (CHC) is a priority area for CCGs and the NHS.
As the national AHSN lead for economic growth, I very much welcome the focus in the NHS Long-term Plan on fast-tracking the development and spread of health innovation.
AHSNs have a crucial role in supporting the sustainability of health and care services as demand increases due to longer life expectancy and population growth. Ensuring that new technology is developed, demonstrated, evaluated and embedded in care pathways is key to speeding up diagnosis, making effective new treatments accessible and improving information flow between patients and services.
Working in the health and care system can be hugely challenging but is often incredibly rewarding, with the decisions you make on a day-to-day basis often directly impacting the lives of patients, carers and their families. This brings huge responsibility but also a sense of privilege and the ability to make what feels like a meaningful contribution through your vocation.
Of course there’s also a personal interest in making sure that NHS and social care services are the best they can be – as we and our families are all patients and service users to some degree during our lifetime. I have been lucky enough to enjoy a varied career in the NHS spanning Public Health, commissioning and service transformation; working directly with clinicians and NHS staff to improve health outcomes and streamline service delivery to provide the best value, in the right place, at the right time for patients.
Today the fundamentals of LfE are being showcased by the East Midlands Patient Safety Collaborative at a national patient safety event. LfE is all about studying excellence in healthcare and creating new opportunities for learning and improving resilience and staff morale. On the LfE website, there are a number of blogs and there is an update from the most recent conference where practitioners shared their learning.
Blogs are written to help us consume information in short bite seize chunks, but here is a challenge, how can we hope to understand such a complex system as healthcare and patient safety learning with the reading of a blog or two? The concepts involved in this complexity require us to have deep knowledge about; systems thinking, the model for improvement and various frameworks from implementation science to get close to that deep understanding. It takes time and a specialist focus as this blog will address.
Improving patients’ experience of care and reducing costs to the NHS are central to EMAHSN’s clinical programmes. Our Scarred Liver project is delivering on both of these; improving outcomes through identifying people at risk of liver disease earlier whilst averting the on-costs of care and treatment.
Working in partnership with the NIHR Nottingham Digestive Diseases Centre BRC, we have supported the roll out of an innovative diagnostic pathway and the use of the mobile Fibroscan® device. This initiative is being led by Professor Neil Guha and his team, and is proven to more effectively detect chronic liver disease at an early stage.