Devon LMC

DH - Transforming community services: ambition, action, achievement- 24 June

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These best practice guides have a vital role to play in the delivery of the intentions for High Quality Care for All: the Next Stage Review. They set out ambitions, taking action and measurement of the achievement and link with, should be read in conjunction with the quality framework/quality indicators.

New guides to transform community services – Press Release 25 June…
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The Transformational Guides for Community Services – ‘Ambition, Action, Achievement!’- will support NHS practitioners and clinical leaders in transforming services locally, providing local staff with the information and tools they need to modernise and improve services in their community. The Guides focus on six key areas:

health, well-being and reducing inequalities
acute care closer to home
people with long-term conditions
rehabilitation services
services for children, young people and families
end of life care.

These Guides, developed with community practitioners, support the ambitions of the Next Stage Review – High Quality Care for All – that the NHS will focus on delivering high quality personalised health services for patients as close to home as possible.

The Guides will also help commissioners to understand community services better and managers to identify areas where improvements can be made. The Guides contain a number of best practice examples, which have been shown to vastly improve patients’ experience of community health care. For example, by ensuring that staff working in end of life care are trained in discussing with patients and their carers and families the choices they can make, and by using proven high quality care pathways to ensure effective, appropriate care and support.

A Quality Framework Guidance for Community Services published alongside the Guides, will help measure and improve the quality of community services provided. The Guidance includes more than 70 proposed quality indicators which will be tested over the coming months. These range from improvements in health outcomes and perceived quality of life to how long wounds take to heal, and waiting times to access services. They cover aspects of effectiveness, safety and patient experience across a wide range of community services.

The work that is now underway to assess the proposed indicators set out in the Quality Framework for Community Services will help to ensure that we can ‘measure what we value’ in terms of the quality of services we provide for patients. We can then move forward and use these good practice examples across the wider NHS.

Health Minister, Lord Ara Darzi, said:

'Patients have told us that whenever it is safe, they prefer to be treated close to home. The six Transformational Guides for Community Services I am launching today will give front line NHS staff all the information they need to help them change the way care is delivered to patients.
'The Guides will firmly put quality at the heart of community services, introducing new, innovative ways of working, and fundamentally improving people’s experience of being treated in the community.'

Managing Director of Provider Services, NHS Calderdale, Gaynor Connor said:

'We are delighted that Lord Darzi has chosen to launch the guides in Calderdale. I believe this is in recognition of our innovative approach in transforming community services. The transformational guides will provide an excellent resource in improving community services across the country.
'The Department of Health has also asked the National Leadership Council to prioritise investment for leadership and staff development in community services, and encouraging PCTs to give a high priority to the provision of information technology for front-line staff.
'The Department also confirmed it would run a second round of its successful Leadership and Innovation Fund awards to provide funding for NHS community staff who want to design and try out innovative ideas for improving local services.'

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DH - Transforming community services: ambition, action, achievement- 24 June

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