NHS Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) has pioneered its clinically-led approach in partnership with Calderdale Council and Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust.
In the first two years alone, the telecare supported programme made savings equating to approximately 7,000 hospital bed days and technology continues to be used for monitoring and risk reduction.
The Quest for Quality in Care Homes initiative has involved 1300 care home residents over the past five years, with a multidisciplinary team and care home staff working to improve care and prevent avoidable emergency attendances and admissions – typically for urinary tract and respiratory infections, falls and fractures.
Since 2013, care home teams have used Tunstall technology to support individual care plans for residents, enabling the prevention of incidents. Results of the project show reduction in emergency hospital admissions. In the launch phase (2014-2016) NHS Calderdale CCG:
• Cut emergency admissions from care home residents by 33%
• Made savings equating to approximately 7000 bed days
• Reduced GP care home visits by 45% following the introduction of the Quest multidisciplinary team Telecare continues to help the CCG support care home residents and prevent falls.
In the last year (2016/17 to 2017/18) emergency admissions relating to falls have decreased by 7.7% which has resulted in an annual saving through the Quest programme of more than £200,000.
Dr Steven Cleasby, Chair of NHS Calderdale CCG said: “The Telecare service has been a really important part of what we have achieved through the Quest for Quality in Care Homes project. Our care homes have engaged with telecare and welcome the support Tunstall provide through equipment provision for residents and carers, with regular on-the-ground support. These have led to efficiencies in staff workload, reductions in falls and general improvement in the quality of care provided.”
Katie Berry, a Quest Nurse from Calderdale said: “This type of technology is massively important. It has without a doubt enhanced safety for our vulnerable care home residents.”
Dr Belinda Coker, Clinical Director of Tunstall and a sessional NHS GP at the Hurley Clinic in South East London said: “We believe NHS Calderdale CCG has led the way in showing that proactive management by highly-skilled multidisciplinary teams using technology in care homes could deliver significant efficiencies and release major capacity while at the same time providing a high-quality service.”
Calderdale is one of the care home initiatives demonstrating what impact clinically-led technology-enabled models could have on a national scale. Independent analysis commissioned by Tunstall revealed that the NHS could release nearly £1bn capacity annually using this type of approach – avoiding 226,000 emergency admissions and 2.5 million bed days. The study combined national government data and data from other regional initiatives that use telecare and telehealth enabled models. A reference model allows the potential opportunities to be analysed at NHS England and regional (STP or CCG) levels.
For further information and the full report please contact Fay Lambert [email protected]