Date(s):
21/05/2020|Time: 13:00 - 14:00
Location: Webinar (multiple dates available)
Organised by: West of England AHSN
Event summary
As we know, there is much national focus on the quality of care being delivered in care homes and GPs will be aware of the Care Home service specification as part of the ongoing work around primary care networks. Find out more here.
Delivering virtual ward rounds and improving digital communication can improve the care provided to care home residents. Our webinar, led by Dr Alison Tavaré and Dr Hein Le Roux who are both local GPs and clinical leads at the West of England AHSN, will provide you with an overview of the training and digital support being provided to care home staff so that care home residents with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 are supported through remote monitoring.
Who should attend?
The webinar will provide an overview of the current training that is being offered to care homes to support them with RESTORE2 and RESTORE2 mini and there will be an opportunity to ask questions. All health care professionals who visit care homes are welcome to join the session.
Dates
For your convenience we are running the same session twice, please register to attend whichever sessions works best for you.
Thursday 14 May, and
Thursday 21 May
Why this webinar?
Often community care delivery involved both patients and clinicians but, as we know in the care home setting, it is crucial to include the care home workforce who are important partners alongside the GP and patient. Local CCGs may have built on these local partnerships and tried to standardise the care offer between care homes and GPs in the form of a local enhanced service which may have, amongst other things, included a service specification and zoning. This encourages one care home to be cared for by one GP surgery which improves relationships and clarity around care delivery particularly personalised care and care planning. You will be aware from the national media and various CQC / NHS England and Improvement publications that the COVID-19 crisis has further put the spotlight on care homes, particularly as the death rate mounts for our most vulnerable population. There is an increasing focus on regular patient reviews, done remotely where possible and delivered in an MDT manner where practical. An important part of this includes treatment escalation plans which involve the patient and loved ones where appropriate.
An important aspect of care delivery is picking up when a person’s health is starting to deteriorate. Wessex AHSN, with endorsement from the British Geriatric Society, have developed a care process called RESTORE2 which standardises the ‘identification’ and ‘prioritisation’ of the ‘deteriorating care home resident’.
This relies on the care home worker:
• identifying and responding to a number of soft signs which might indicate that the resident is starting to deteriorate
• performing 5 basic observations (pulse, blood pressure, respiratory rate, oxygen saturation, temperature) and calculating a NEWS.
• acting on their suspicion / concern and escalating to a clinician, usually the GP or OOH contact, communicating their concern together with the NEWS.
• using a standardised communication format called SBARD (situation, background, assessment, recommendation, decision) to communicate their concerns to the clinician
• together with the clinician relying on the advance care conversation / documentation, referred to as ReSPECT in our region, to inform clinical decision making.
In our West of England Academic Health Science Network footprint we are working with many care homes to implement this RESTORE2 care process, but as important partners in care delivery, it is important that GPs are sighted on this work. As part of this work, we are upskilling care home workers in being able to perform basic observations which form part of the NEWS ‘identification’ and ‘prioritisation’ process. This also supports using precious clinical time more efficiently as we then know who needs our attention in a more objective way.
Find out more about how we are supporting organisations in the region at https://www.healthinnowest.net/covid-19-support
