Professor Martin Vernon, our Frailty Network clinical lead, explains here why a Frailty Care Reference Group has been launched and what its objectives are.
We are bringing a range of professionals together to improve the health and quality of life of people with frailty by responding better to their complex needs.
The Covid-19 pandemic has thrown into sharp relief the importance of now moving forwards at pace with 2019 NHS Long Term Plan ambitions for care to be more joined-up, coordinated and population health-focused, while reducing demand on urgent care.
When it comes to providing a more differentiated offer to key groups of people focused on prevention, inequalities reduction and improved system responsiveness, Greater Manchester is already well placed.
Yet there is a formidable amount of work lying ahead of us. The recent PHE wider impacts of COVID-19 report predicts a significant increase in human deconditioning - accelerated loss of physical, psychological and physical function as a result of inactivity.
This is expected to impact most profoundly on older people, those with multiple long-term health conditions, dementia, living in social care settings, including care homes or in socio-economically deprived circumstances. This will lead to great numbers of people experiencing falls, placing additional strain on urgent care and incurring additional health and social care costs.
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For older people, the funded national ageing well programme places emphasis on promoting a multidisciplinary team approache to provide tailored support that helps people live well and independently at home for longer.
In particular this means developing more rapid community response teams to support older people to avoid the need for, or to leave hospital early, and offering more NHS support in care homes. It also means upgrading the way we identify and care for older people with acute frailty syndromes in emergency care.
To support the Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Partnership (GMHSC Partnership) in implementing ageing well and acute frailty services across Greater Manchester, we have now established a Frailty Care Reference Group (FCRG), convened by the Strategic Clinical Network and chaired by myself and Dr Emma Vardy.
The group comprises broad multi-professional representation from across the GM localities and is working closely with end of life care and older people’s mental health colleagues to support the GMHSC Partnership Ageing Well Steering Group. The FCRP aims to align GM services with national planning and strategy to support delivery of high quality and consistent services for older people with complex needs across GM. Its objectives are to bring together clinical leadership, service providers and commissioners to:
- Support delivery of the national objectives;
- Identify and reduce unwarranted variation in clinical outcomes;
- Improve clinical outcomes and patient experience;
- Act as a professional leadership and reference group focused on the need of older people for the GMHSC Partnership.
We are now looking to rapidly broaden and increase representation on the group and all interested parties are encouraged to contact ewanjones@nhs.net for further information.
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The NHS Benchmarking Network – which aims to be the definitive reference point for benchmarking publicly-funded health and social care services - has developed the first in a series of frailty podcasts.
The podcast, in collaboration with Wessex AHSN and the Wessex Healthy Ageing programme, alongside the London Clinical Network, is downloadable and available here.
People working within the cardiac field in Greater Manchester (GM) are invited to join a virtual event aimed at looking at the future of services on Thursday, October 7 (see full details below in attached invite).
Called ‘Reinvigorating Cardiac Services Across GM and Eastern Cheshire’, the meeting will see the GM Cardiac Network bring colleagues together to hear about its approach, the opportunities it has moving forwards in light of the new ICS structure, how the Network plays into this and what the national picture looks like.
We would particularly encourage people working in cardiac pathways, commissioners and the NWAS workforce to attend.
Attendees at the event will also hear overviews on the work of individual workstreams, delivered via breakout sessions.
Please feel free to share the invite below to others you think would find the session of interest.
For joining instructions and any queries, please contact michelle.davies9@nhs.net.
Two appointments have been made to the North West Maternal Medicine Network – a new organisation set-up to help improve safety for women with co-existing medical conditions, and their babies, during pregnancy and childbirth.
Dr Sarah Winfield (pictured left), a consultant obstetrician based in the North East, has been named the independent chair, while Lynette Harwood (pictured below right) is the programme manager.
The aim of Maternal Medicine Networks (MMNs) is to ensure women with acute and chronic medical problems have timely access to specialist advice and care at all stages of pregnancy.
They are central to NHS England/Improvement strategy for reducing mortality for all pregnant woman and reducing neonatal morbidity and mortality.
The GMEC SCNs appointed Lynette to lead on the programme management of setting up a Maternal Medicine Network across the North West.
Sarah will be working with key stakeholders and the wider team to oversee implementation of this important national maternity safety ambition.
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In the North West, the MMN will cover the three Local Maternity System (LMS) areas: Greater Manchester and Eastern Cheshire, Cheshire and Mersey and Lancashire and South Cumbria.
The LMS teams have collaborated closely to develop their proposal for their MMN. There will be a phased approach to full implementation, with an initial Maternal Medicine Centre at Saint Mary’s Hospital, Manchester, with two further networked centres in Liverpool and Preston.
This will enable more women to be treated closer to home when appropriate, with referral to another networked centre in the North West for specific subspecialist pathways, as is already the case for many women with a range of medical conditions.
The timescale to have the MMN operational and sustainable as a managed network is April 2022.
Dr Winfield is a consultant obstetrician with a special interest in maternal medicine at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust and is clinical lead for the Yorkshire and Humber Clinical Network, as well as regional lead obstetrician for the North East and Yorkshire.
Lynette has been working within maternity transformation for eight years. Her work includes maternity service reviews, leading on the Greater Manchester Maternity Pioneer and the development of Ingleside birth and community hub, as well as working with NHS England as the north of England Choice and Personalisation lead. You can follow Lynette on Twitter @lynette1010.
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In our July newsletter we ran a story about how the Peppy Baby app had been shown to have had a positive impact on parents – two figures were incorrectly reported, please see below a full run down of the correct figures:
At eight weeks, 80% of women were breastfeeding, (this is higher than the average across Greater Manchester)
95% said Peppy helped them feel more knowledgeable about breastfeeding
At eight weeks, 82% of parents were feeding their babies as they had planned (importance of this on parental wellbeing)
Mental wellbeing improved during the pilot, with the percentage of mothers reporting normal or high wellbeing increasing from 69% at baseline to 90% at the end of the pilot. There was a particularly high increase in mental wellbeing at end of the pilot from those of Black, Asian or minority ethnic background
90% reported Peppy Baby gave them greater confidence in their parenting
93% said they would like to see Peppy Baby continue.
Greater Manchester and Eastern Cheshire Local Maternity System (GMEC LMS) - which the SCNs’ Maternity Network is a part of - was the only LMS involved in this recent pilot of the Peppy Baby app.
The lead maternity provider Saint Mary's Managed Clinical Service worked with stakeholders across Manchester, Trafford and Salford with support from the SCN Maternity team on the pilot of the Peppy Baby app.
This was for those in late pregnancy through to eight weeks post birth, providing additional free expert support including 1-2-1 text chat with perinatal practitioners, infant feeding consultations, mental health advice, tailored group webinar sessions on a wide range of topics and peer support group chat.
If you are interested in receiving the full evaluation report, once this has been released, please email Zoe.Neilson1@nhs.net.
A new pathway for Covid Oximetry @home for pregnant women in Greater Manchester and Eastern Cheshire has been agreed and circulated to all maternity providers.
The aim of the pathway is to detect silent hypoxia to enable early admission to hospital to reduce poor maternal and fetal outcomes due to Covid-19 infection. The new pathway should be seen as an additional ‘safety net’ to add into standard care in place now.
Increasing numbers of stillbirths and poor outcomes are being seen in women with even mild to moderate Covid-19 infections.
All women who are pregnant and have tested positive for Covid-19 can access the Covid Oximetry @home programme. This consists of patients having a health assessment and being given a pulse oximeter which measures their oxygen saturation levels three times a day.
They record their results using either a smartphone app, web portal or paper option and are then contacted by a Hub representative daily to discuss their symptoms for 14 days. Access to the service is made via the GP or 111 out of hours.
Midwives and obstetricians can refer women presenting with Covid-19, but they can also self-present or be put on the service by contacting their GP. The GP and Covid Oximetry Hubs will have a low threshold for referral to maternity services in the interests of safety to prevent poor outcomes.
Midwives are being encouraged to ask women whether they are taking vitamin D as part of efforts being made to reduce the number of women who have insufficient or deficient levels of vitamin D during pregnancy and breastfeeding.
Infographics have been produced to spread the word and it is hoped women who are at increased risk of deficiency will be recommended to take the higher dosage.
The two infographics are:
- A health care professional infographic to inform and support maternity professionals on key information in relation to vitamin D and the Healthy Start Scheme.
- An infographic for parents to be/new parents about vitamin D and the Healthy Start Scheme.
Please feel free to share these infographics and click here for more information on vitamin D.
Infographic 1
Infographic 2
The National Bundle of Care for Asthma has just been published.
With 1 in 11 children nationally living with asthma, it will support our system-wide aim to improve asthma outcomes for children and young people in Greater Manchester, which are generally worse for those living in deprived areas.
Here is a link to the bundle of care.
This is the culmination of work that NHS England and NHS Improvement have been leading on, working with key stakeholders, including young people and their families. The bundle sets out interventions to help children, young people, families and carers to control and reduce the risk of asthma attacks and to prevent avoidable harm.
This will be achieved by taking a whole system approach to asthma management including addressing environmental triggers, a comprehensive education programme, promoting personalised care, effective preventative medicine and improved accuracy of diagnosis.
We have some exciting staff news this month, involving anniversaries, fundraising and babies!
Lyndsey Kavanagh (pictured left with a non-alcoholic drink), project officer for the cardiovascular network, will be taking maternity leave for a year from early next month.
She has been with us for almost four years and previously worked for the Dementia Network.
We wish both Lyndsey and her husband Conor an exciting new start as a family and look forward to the photos of their baby boy!
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Gareth Lord (pictured right), our respiratory programme manager, recently celebrated his 20th anniversary in the NHS.
Gareth started his career in the NHS in health informatics, supporting winter pressures at Wythenshawe Hospital. Over several years he gained a great deal of knowledge and expertise as he worked to support different departments including A&E, bed management, surgery, clinical support services and allied health professionals.
In 2009, Gareth moved in to project management and joined the cardiac and stroke clinical network, later the strategic clinical network. Now a programme manager, Gareth has added vascular, mental health, neurology, diabetes, respiratory and Covid-19 to his portfolio of work.
“I’m really proud of reaching my 20th anniversary in the NHS and the work I have been involved in,” he said.
“Working with passionate clinicians to develop strategy and embed improvements to make life better for everyone accessing health care is why I love my job.”
Congratulations Gareth from everyone in the team!
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And well done to members of our team who ran the Greater Manchester 10K run. A great effort from all of them.
Zoe Neilson (pictured far left), Jo Langton (second left), Elaine Parkin (centre) and Colin Daffern (second right) all completed the race, making lots of money via their JustGiving pages for Target Ovarian Cancer (Colin), #Tale: The Adam Lewis Effect Foundation (Jo) and the Alzheimer’s Society (Elaine and Zoe).
Fran Carbery (far right) also ran and finished the race and Catherine Cain ran the 10k close to her home in Preston. All the runners are members of the SCNs' WhatsApp running group - they have been motivating each other over the past six months.
A brilliant achievement!
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