News

15 hospital admissions avoided every day

Our Neighbourhood Teams bring together nurses, therapists, GPs and social workers into single, integrated teams for the first time in Worcestershire. Their aim is to reduce avoidable admissions to hospital and if hospital is needed, to reduce lengths of stay by providing more proactive and responsive care to our most vulnerable patients. On average between 10-15 patients per day who would otherwise have been admitted to hospital are being kept at home by their local Neighbourhood Team. This supports our partners manage demand but also ensures those patients benefit from being at home in a familiar environment which is more conducive to rehab and recovery.

Click here to find out more about our local Neighbourhood Teams (opens in new window) 

Introducing the new Onward Care Team

Our teams are key to supporting the wider system to manage demand within emergency and urgent care services. There are a number of developments we’re leading or involved with, including a new Onward Care Team which launches this month.

It brings together a range of health and social care staff to work alongside teams at the Worcestershire Royal and Alexandra hospitals to identify and coordinate the care patients will need so that they can leave hospital as soon as possible.

The team will ensure that planning for discharge starts on admission and when support is needed, this will be patient centred and personalised to need. The team is aiming to reduce length of stay and eliminate the risk of hospital acquired functional decline, whilst increasing the opportunity for rehabilitation and independence.

We’re launching DadsPad

Our mental health campaign – Now We’re Talking - continues to go from strength to strength and as well as raising awareness of our Healthy Minds service, is also working across Herefordshire and Worcestershire to highlight perinatal mental health issues. As part of this work, we will be launching DadsPad – a new online local resource providing help and support for fathers and fathers-to-be to equip them emotionally for their new addition.

Check out @WHCT_Perinatal on Twitter for more information on the campaign and the launch of Dads Pad

Mental Health Liaison Accreditation

Congratulations to our Mental Health Liaison Team who have achieved PLAN accreditation in January!

The team met the Quality Standards for Liaison Psychiatry Services as set out by the Psychiatric Liaison Accreditation Network (PLAN). They provide comprehensive assessment to all people, regardless of age, who attend Worcestershire Royal Hospital and the Alexandra Hospital Emergency Departments following an episode of self-harm, attempted suicide or presenting with symptoms of mental illness. It helps ensure those people then get the expert mental health support they need.

County’s first Crisis Assessment Suite is open

On the theme of mental health crisis services, we are also delighted to say the county’s first Crisis Assessment Suite is also now open. It is a countywide service which provides support for those people experiencing a mental health crisis. At the moment it can be accessed via professional referral only using existing contacts and pathways, for example from the mental health liaison team in A&E, or via the police or ambulance service.

The suite has been fully refurbished and ensures people experiencing a crisis get the expert mental health support they need as quickly as possible. There are plans to open access up access in the future. There will be more information on a formal opening of the new service shortly.

Herefordshire Mental Health and Learning Disability Services

We will be taking over delivery responsibility for Mental Health and Learning Disability services in Herefordshire from April 1st. It will allow mental health/LD services in both counties to continue to build on the positive relationships developed over the last few years through the local Sustainability and Transformation Partnership (STP).

There won’t be any changes to local services in Herefordshire as a result of this but there will be opportunities to share learning and best practice which both services will embrace moving forward.

New sexual health clinic in Worcester

A new state of the art sexual health clinic has officially opened in Worcester. The new, purpose built clinic is based at Aconbury North on Newtown Road and brings together sexual health services previously delivered from the John Anthony site and Moor Street clinic which was inaccessible for patients in a wheelchair. Service users can now access a range of sexual health and contraception care, including a vasectomy clinic, delivered under one roof through a mix of walk-in and pre-booked appointments.

Future Development of our Community Hospitals

We have now held two public events to discuss future development opportunities for each of our seven sites to play a more significant role within their local communities. To clarify all the hospitals are safe and this is about them doing more to support the wider health and wellbeing of their local communities, as well as continuing to meet their clinical demands.

Click here for more information on our community hospitals programme.

Top marks for cleanliness

PLACE (Patient–Led Assessment of the Care Environment) assess inpatient areas for their cleanliness; quality of the food provided; how they protect privacy and dignity of patients; their general condition and maintenance; and how suitable they are for patients with dementia or a disability.

• Our community hospitals (Princess of Wales in Bromsgrove, Evesham, Pershore, Malvern, Tenbury, Worcester City and Wyre Forest) scored 100% for cleanliness
• Average scores across community hospital and mental health wards for food, privacy and dignity, condition and maintenance, and how well the environments supported patients with dementia or a disability all scored above national averages.

The results are a credit to clinical, housekeeping, maintenance and catering teams as well as the wider Trust and reflect the importance that is placed on ensuring patients are cared for with compassion and dignity in a clean, safe environment.

Biggest flu vaccine uptake ever!

85% of our front-line staff had the flu jab this year, the biggest uptake ever. It not only means more staff are protected, but it also minimises the risks of vulnerable patients contacting the flu too. Huge thanks to all our flu champions across the Trust.

CQC report

And finally, you will have seen the outcome of our latest CQC inspection which rated Children’s Mental Health services as outstanding for the first time in Worcestershire. Our community dental team also achieved an Outstanding rating in the ‘caring’ domain, while the Trust maintained an Good rating overall. Due to specific staffing issues in one of our community mental health teams we were rated Inadequate in that category. We have been working with the team to ensure sufficient staffing is now in place.

Thank you for reading, if you have any feedback or want more information on any of the above email: Head of Communications, Gary Morgan on gary.morgan7@nhs.net