What is the positive change that has emerged through new collaborations or partnerships during Covid-19 that your project is going to embed?

Our acute trust provided care within Cornwall for very ill patients during the Covid-19 pandemic. In order to support this 3 Community Assessment and Treatment Units were created to enable frail elderly people to be cared for closer to home encompassing the ethos of Placed Based Care.

The 3 units and one Opel unit are within smaller hospital units closer to the community in which they serve.

Frail elderly people we know have multiple comorbidities and often need the support of review of a specialist.

Our ambition is to be able to provide remote connections to specialists so that a consultation can take place and a plan can be formulated rather than divert the person to a busy emergency department. If we can achieve the best we can deliver then a remote consultation may reduce the number of frail elderly people having to be escalated to the acute trust for a consultation

What does your project aim to achieve?

We will achieve an innovative IT solution that will enable complex medical and surgical decisions to be made remotely.

We want to see if this innovation prevents unnecessary transfers to acute facilities, as well as promoting a rapid assessment and transfer to the most appropriate setting for frail elderly people.

We will support our workforce in adopting and feeling confident in delivering and taking part in remote consultations, using the best technological systems available to the NHS.

Out outcomes will be based on

1. Patient satisfaction

2. Best Outcomes for our people and our staff

3. A reduction in unnecessary transfers and escalations, including a reduction of patient safety incidents

4. Innovation in how we could adopt and use technological solutions

5. Workforce Education and Training in using technological solutions within a Community Hospital Setting

6. Best use of Emergency Services in relation to Transportation

7. Cost efficiencies

How will the project be delivered?

We know that during Covid-19 the resources within our acute organisations were needed to provide highly complex and invasive support to people suffering the complications of Covid-19

Thinking differently we adopted a new approach in how we care for and deliver services closer to home for our frail elderly people.

The skills and competencies within our community hospital services were under used and not really fully recognised or utilised.

Adopting a transformational  methodology we will adopt a test and learn approach

Providing bespoke training and education around the technological solutions we can adopt and learn from

Measuring the impact of

1. Patient satisfaction and outcomes

2. Can we identify a better patient and staff experience

3. Reduce unnecessary travel often out of hours and then a long wait in a busy Emergency Department that can be disorientating and cause more anxiety to someone who may already have a delirium or a dementia

How is your project going to share learning?

Shared learning across the Health and Social Care system within the South West and Q Members

Formulate a research study and publish findings

The potential of this proposal is very exciting, its demonstrating how acute and community services can work collaboratively to provide the very best care we can during a national pandemic.

Removing professional boundaries has the potential to support the system to transform as we should within a placed based care arena working in partnership with multiple specialities and professionals in a  hope that we can provide a better outcome for our frail elderly people who often become stuck within a system of sophisticated models of care. This project has the potential to transform Frailty Care, decrease patient safety incidents and to set it within our community where people wish to be cared for.