Enhance productivity and value for money
As an Integrated Care System we want to facilitate purposeful innovation in health and care and foster a learning culture within our organisation to properly value our staff. Below you can find some of the work that has been happening to support this aim.
Working together to deliver endoscopy services
The need to respond to the Covid-19 Pandemic meant that many services had to be paused during the first wave of the pandemic. Although staff worked hard to restore services, the pandemic has resulted in increased waiting lists of patients needing care, as well as reduced capacity to deliver services, as we adhere to new infection control measures to keep both staff and patients safe.
As the pressure on the hospitals from the first wave receded, in addition to restarting the bowel cancer screening programme and treating those patients who had already been referred for an endoscopy, we also observed a rise in overall demand for endoscopy services. This was potentially because patients are now more comfortable visiting their GP following the rollout of the Covid-19 vaccination programme. This demand further increased the pressure on endoscopy services across the system.
Through working in partnership to make the best use of all our appointments and exploring new ways of working we were able to support patients to access endoscopy services more quickly, improving their chance of benefiting from early intervention.
Population Health Management ‘Hackathons’ in South Warwickshire
A hackathon is a design sprint-like event, typically where software development professionals collaborate intensively on software projects. Senior analyst managers and leaders from Warwickshire County Council, Coventry and Warwickshire CCG, and South Warwickshire University NHS Foundation Trust used the hackathon events to analyse health data using a linked data set to identify opportunities for beneficial health interventions in the local population.
Three hackathons were run in total. They used high level population health data to identify priorities, and then the linked data set to identify cohorts of patients who might benefit from an intervention. In the third session, a health needs assessment was carried out so that an intervention could be developed.
In between the hackathons the data was discussed with an Action Learning Set of senior leaders, clinicians, as well as members and officers from local government for feedback.
Promoting partnership working in Coventry and Warwickshire
In order to support the delivery of the Long-Term Plan and People Plan; Health Education England (HEE) developed 24 Allied Health Professions Faculty test beds across the country.
AHP Faculty Test beds are an expert advisory group and a connecting forum to the whole health and care system. They provide a setting for key stakeholders to work together to ensure that there was enough health care staff to meet demands. The aim of the AHP Faculties is to improve the co-ordination of workforce activity across Integrated Care Systems with a focus on supply, education and training to secure the current supply pipeline and future growth of the AHP workforce.
The project so far has resulted in the successful provision of students from across the country during COVID pandemic including shared job descriptions and contracting terms during paid placements. It facilitated an increase of 24% in the number of students placed despite the challenges of COVID-19.
Supporting newly qualified health professionals
A New to Practice Professional Development Programme (NTPP), was designed to help newly qualified GPs, Practice Nurses and allied healthcare professionals in their first years of practice. The aim was to create a platform for multi-professional education and provide sessions focused on essential nonclinical skills required for work in general practice. It also looked to help improve net-working and reduce the feeling of isolation.
The programme has received positive feedback and has been accepted for poster presentation at the Royal College of General Practitioners annual conference to be held in October 2021 in Liverpool.
Health coaching and support for high intensity service users
A Quality Improvement Project designed to provide health coaching and non-judgemental support to service users who have frequent contact with A&E and unplanned admissions and may also be calling West Midlands Ambulance Service (WMAS) 999 more often than expected. The service uses A&E case finding to proactively engage individuals that are using the department on more than 12 occasions over a rolling 12 months to offer support.