West of England AHSN sponsored Q exchange bid successfully funded
The Health Foundation Q Exchange funding programme aims to activate the knowledge of improvement experts across the UK; to create links between those leading work and those who can help champion, support, adopt these ideas; and to boost ideas that have the best potential to generate value for the health and care system.
We are delighted that one of the successful projects was sponsored by the West of England AHSN: Churchdown Connections.
The aim of the project is to empower patients to self-care by training a member of staff in health coaching skills, mapping community assets and facilitate connections between patients and community-based peer support groups.
Churchdown Surgery in Gloucestershire is a popular practice with high patient satisfaction. Despite this the staff are tackling an increased workload – from patients struggling with multiple chronic diseases, frailty, loneliness, and mental health problems. It is apparent that many of these patients find it difficult to make lifestyle changes and engage with sources of support.
The practice is keen to move away from the old-fashioned focus of a GP surgery focussing on illness to a practice embedded and connected to the community with a focus on empowering patients to look after their own health, support each other and their community.
Three potential patient groups have been identified as priority areas, along with supporting carers for people in these groups:
- Adults living with diabetes or pre-diabetes.
- Young and working-age people with mental health conditions.
- Older people experiencing loneliness and social isolation.
By mapping the assets in the community and matching them to health needs from practice data, Churchdown Connections will adopt and adapt new models in place in other areas in the country to create the connections between the health needs of the community and community-based assets.
The project team are working closely with Gloucester CCG to join this project with wider work on social prescribing that is being undertaken in the area
The funding offered by the Q Exchange will give backfill to enable a team of practice staff to carry out the activities above, scoping, data gathering, and co-design activities with members of the local community, as well as fund visits to exemplary sites (e.g. Frome, Bromley-by-Bow), training in health coaching conversations, and remuneration to patient champions.
To find out more about the programme go here
Posted on September 24, 2018
