Care home residents are now receiving additional support to help them stay well and out of hospital thanks to a brand new community service running across east Suffolk.
The care home initiative sees a small team of specialist nurses and therapists work with the area’s 86 care homes to provide training and education to staff so that they can proactively support their residents to stay well. This can include support with everything from taking observations and catheter care to falls prevention, exercise advice, wound care and managing challenging behaviour.
The team, which is made up of a senior physiotherapist, senior nurse, tissue viability specialist nurse and dementia specialist nurse, also offer a reactive service for people going into crisis so that they can provide the right support to keep them at home and prevent a hospital admission.
(L – R) Rebecca Edwards, senior physiotherapist, Alexis Johnys, senior nurse, Amy Rhodes, tissue viability specialist nurse, and Cat Ritson, dementia specialist nurse
Rebecca Edwards, senior physiotherapist with the team, said: “Our main aim is to help reduce
111 calls and avoidable hospital admissions by equipping care home staff with the skills they need to monitor their residents’ health and recognise when a condition may be getting worse. We encourage them to call us with any questions they may have, and can offer help or specialist advice on areas such as dementia, pressure ulcers and physiotherapy.
“We can also help reactively with residents who are deteriorating or in crisis. We do this by monitoring their condition and completing a holistic assessment of the individual and the situation. We liaise with other teams and GPs to ensure the resident remains in their own home, rather than having an admission to hospital for preventable reasons.
“By working so closely with the care homes and empowering their staff to safeguard the health of their own residents, we hope that our team can help reduce pressure on the wider system while also supporting people to enjoy a better quality of life by staying well for longer.”
The service launched before Christmas and is hosted by REACT and delivered by ESNEFT in partnership with Ipswich and East Suffolk Clinical Commissioning Group.
Care home staff are able to refer to the team directly. For more information, email iesccg.carehomeinitiative@nhs.net.
Back to top