Sutton Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) is one of only two sites in London chosen to become a vanguard site, NHS England announced yesterday.
Over the last year Sutton CCG has been working with local partners in health, social care and the voluntary sector, to provide support to local care homes, with the aim of improving safety and quality for residents.
Being part of this national programme will allow Sutton CCG to take our work with care homes to the next level. With the extra support provided to vanguard sites, we expect to be able to deliver a number of new initiatives, including working with local hospital, community, GP and social care colleagues to develop a regular ‘ward round’ in care homes, similar to those on a hospital ward.
Dr Brendan Hudson, Chair of Sutton CCG, said, “We are really delighted to have been chosen from more than 260 groups across the country and recognised for our innovative work with care homes and the benefits that this work brings to the residents.“
Christine Harger, Quality Assurance Manager, who led the work for Sutton CCG, said “With an increasing ageing population, we want to make sure that older people receive the care that they need and deserve. We are thrilled to have this opportunity to build on the project and once complete, we know that other CCGs across the country will be able to take it and use it as a model to support and improve care homes in their local area too.”
Work so far has included:
· setting up a network for care home providers; providing time for managers to discuss challenges, meet with other voluntary agencies and identify training needs. The next step for the Forum will be to continue working with community service colleagues to develop a suite of training, support and resource packs on a range of topics, such as preventing falls, and in formats that are easy for care home staff to use, e.g. podcasts and films.
· establishing a Joint Intelligence Group; led by Sutton CCG and the London Borough of Sutton, this group brings together a range of health and social care services in the borough and uses local intelligence to respond swiftly to any quality or safety concerns and provide appropriate support and education to care homes.
· developing new models of health and social care; working with GP practices to explore how technology might help GPs to support residents in care homes alongside other health and social care professionals, and providing extra support to care homes and their residents who are approaching end of life, to improve care co-ordination and enable the patient to choose their preferred place to die.
Sarah Stacey, Care Home Manager at Crossways Nursing Home, has been working with Sutton CCG on the project, “I have found the Care Home Forum to be really supportive and responsive. The education and training we have received has been fantastic, one example is that we now use the dementia podcast as a part of our induction for all staff.
“Through the Forum, I can access more services from a range of different professionals who support us to care for our residents. For example, we have really appreciated the support received from the challenging behaviour team in helping us to care for our residents with dementia, and the end of life care nurses have been a hugely valuable resource to help us provide appropriate care and support to our residents at this difficult time. It finally feels like everyone is working together for the resident.”