News from LPT …providing integrated community health, mental health and learning disability services No.8: February 2014 Contents Ashby Consultation This is the latest briefing from LPT, where we share service news and developments. More information and regular updates are available on our website www.leicspart.nhs.uk and by following our Twitter feed @LPTnhs. Consultation underway – Ashby and District Hospital Young Carers ID The public are being invited to have their say on proposals to make Ashby community health services fit for the future. We are asking people to pick one of two options and provide their comments on the future of the community health services provided from Ashby and District Hospital. The consultation, organised by LPT and West Leicestershire Clinical Commissioning Group, will run until Sunday 6th April. The consultation document and additional information is available here. Stonewall success Two public meetings have been arranged and the details are below. National mental health pilot Boosting Physical Healthcare New Rehab service Meeting with third sector Employment Support Single referral Super Weekend Quality Improvement Nasal Flu Pilot Research role for CEO 5 March 2014, 2.30pm – 4pm, The Royal Hotel, Station Road, Ashby-DeLa-Zouch, Leicestershire, LE65 2GP (registration and refreshments from 2pm) 5 March 2014, 6.30pm – 8pm, The Royal Hotel, Station Road, Ashby-DeLa-Zouch, Leicestershire, LE65 2GP (registration and refreshments from 6pm) For printed copies of the consultation document and questionnaire, with a Freepost reply address, please call the Engagement Team on 0116 295 4183 or email [email protected] LPT wins bid with police to spearhead national mental health pilot LPT, with Leicestershire Police, has won a share of £25 million government funding to increase the number of mental health nurses working in police stations and courts. Staffing changes 1 1 Leicestershire’s is one of 10 national pilots, announced by Care and Support Minister Norman Lamb, to trial a new liaison and diversion service - a system of ‘timely’ healthcare support for people with mental ill health who come into contact with the criminal justice system. The plan is to increase specialist support for young people, people with learning disabilities - particularly autism, and for older people with mental health issues, including dementia. Find out more in our media release. Pioneering work to boost physical health of mental health patients LPT is pioneering a new system that could improve the long-term physical health prospects of mental health patients nationally. The Leicestershire Physical Health Register was developed to ensure people prescribed anti-psychotic drugs for conditions such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder have regular checks on their physical health. These conditions increase the risk of developing potentially life-limiting illnesses such as heart disease and diabetes. The register works by triggering reminders and monitoring take-up of regular checks. We are piloting the new register with newly prescribed patients from this month. It was developed by specialist mental health pharmacist Dolly Sud, consultant psychiatrist Dr Manjunath Minajagi and consultant pathologist Dr James Falconer Smith. Dolly said: “Regular health monitoring is vital. The potential positive impact of the register could be significant.” See our media release for more details. Young Carer’s ID launched in new joint venture A new ID card scheme for young carers was launched on the 12 February. This is a joint venture between LPT, Leicestershire and Rutland County Councils, Leicester City Council and Barnardo’s Carefree Services. The ID cards will identify young people as carers and inform medical professionals that the person they care for has given consent for them to discuss issues including their condition, medication and prognosis. It will give young carers the authority to communicate important information about the person they care for with medical professionals. Also, if the young carer is involved in an accident, through the card, the emergency services would know that there is someone at home who is dependent on them. It is estimated that more than 200 young people in the Leicestershire, Leicester City and Rutland area could benefit from one of the cards. See media release for further information. LPT increases ranking in Stonewall index We are actively championing Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) rights within our workplace. LPT’s position is rising on the Stonewall Workplace Equality Index. The index is Britain’s leading tool for employers to measure their efforts to tackle discrimination and create inclusive workplaces for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employees. Since 2005 nearly 1000 major employers have taken part in the Index, using Stonewall's criteria as a model for good practice. Since we first entered the Index in 2010, steady progress has been made to improve our ranking year on year. Our position has risen 10 places up since the last submission. Stonewall stated “This is a very good result and LPT should be proud of their achievements”. See our media release for more details. New rehab service to launch in summer Following a recent tender process we are very pleased to announce that we have secured the opportunity to develop a new rehabilitation service within our adult mental health division. The new service will provide up to eight places for men requiring support within a locked environment. The beds, based at The Willows are expected to open in the summer. Creating this new service will mean we can provide support for local people and reduce the number of patients who would ordinarily have to go out of area to receive this specialist type of care. Look out for more details later in the year. 2 2 Voluntary and community organisations meet regularly with LPT We invited charities, support groups and voluntary community sector groups to an informal meeting with the chief executive Dr Peter Miller in January. These meetings will now take place quarterly at a venue in Leicester with a member of the LPT board. They are an opportunity for volunteers, charity and support workers of Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland to hear updates on recent local health service developments and to ask questions. Dr Peter Miller said: “I was very pleased to meet local charity, volunteer and support members of our communities last month. Their contribution is a vital aspect of the trust’s delivery of service; they are an important supporter of our community services and we value their contribution highly”. Employment support for patients Research shows that for most people work is beneficial to health and wellbeing. However, returning back to work after recovering from mental illness can be a challenge. LPT recognises the difficulties people may face and has partnered with employment specialist Aspiro to actively support people back into the workplace. Aspiro is an experienced Leicester based employment service and specialises in helping people with mental health problems access work and volunteering opportunities. Their staff provide expert advice and guidance to support employment issues. The service is available to residents of Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland who are using or have previously used secondary mental health services, whether in work or not who need support with employment. People can refer themselves directly to the service. For more information contact Aspiro on 0800 098 8708 or [email protected] Single referral for families, young people and children’s services Need to make a referral to LPT’s Families, Young People and Children’s Services? We have made it easier for you to make a referral to our services, avoiding the need to navigate complex systems and multiple points of contact. You can now make a referral to Families, Young People and Children’s Services by downloading one single form and simply sending it to us by either: emailing: [email protected] ; By post to: FYPC Referrals. Families, Young People and Children's Services, Leicester Partnership NHS Trust, Bridge Park Plaza, Bridge Park Road, Thurmaston, Leicester, LE4 8PQ or Fax:0116 2958302; download the most up to date referral form now from www.leicspart.nhs.uk/fypcreferrals If you have access to Systm1, you can make your referral through the child health module (Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland CHS) . For more information about our services please visit www.leicspart.nhs.uk or ring 0300 3000 007. Super weekend success Staff from LPT were involved in two ‘super weekends’ at the beginning of January. The first two weekends of the year are normally the busiest for urgent care. The super weekend initiative was organised in a bid to tackle the bottleneck of patients which can often build up over the weekends at the Leicester Royal Infirmary's A&E department and the urgent care centre. The scheme saw more consultants, senior doctors, nurses, pharmacists, physiotherapists, drivers and other staff on duty to bring down waiting times and increase the number of patients discharged. Over 98 per cent of patients who visited were treated within four hours. The target is 95 per cent. LPT’s community health staff worked very hard to ensure that patients who required either community-based healthcare or a community hospital bed were supported to access this care as quickly as possible, which helped ease the pressure on the acute and emergency services. Quality improvement at Bradgate making real progress Good progress is being made with the Quality Improvement Programme (QIP), which we put in place following a Care Quality Commission (CQC) visit to the Bradgate Unit last summer. The QIP centres on improving the patient experience and delivering high quality patient care across our services. 3 3 A significant amount of work is underway including a large recruitment programme to employ over 40 new nurses at the Bradgate, plus additional therapeutic liaison workers, occupational therapists, ward admin staff and two physical health nurses. We are also changing the skill mix so that our adult mental health wards are staffed to a ratio of 60:40 qualified to unqualified staff (moving from 40:60 qualified to unqualified). We are pleased that the CQC noted an improvement during their return visit in the autumn and there is real momentum and motivation to make long term, sustainable changes at the unit. It’s important to note that any lessons from serious incidents or concerns raised by the Coroner are feeding into our improvement process; this is to ensure we are addressing any changes needed in a systematic and appropriate way. Work is progressing really well. The QIP is not a quick fix solution and some of the improvement work we are focusing on will of course take us time to develop and implement – as it is important we get it right. We will keep you updated with progress with a new QIP newsletter. The first issue will be out later this month. 28,000 local children have benefited from national nasal flu pilot LPT has completed a 14 week national pilot programme to deliver the nasal flu vaccine to primary school children for Public Health England. The flu team of nurses has visited 213 primary, independent and faith schools across Leicester City, East Leicester and Rutland. The vaccine was offered to 54,954 parents of primary school children, and of those, 28,652 were vaccinated against the flu – giving an uptake of 52.1%. Suzanne Leatherland, project lead with LPT, said: “The dedication and commitment of the team has been outstanding throughout the programme and credit and thanks should be shared with all staff involved. Particular thanks also to the schools for their help and cooperation in delivering the pilot.” Chief exec to chair clinical research network Dr Peter Miller has been appointed chair of the National Institute for Health Research Clinical Research Network (NIHR CRN). The CRN helps to provide the infrastructure that allows high-quality clinical research to take place in the NHS, so that patients can benefit from new and better treatments, and we can learn how to improve NHS healthcare for the future. Peter has extensive experience in research leadership and management having held influential roles in the regional CLAHRCs and with the Nottingham Institute of Mental Health. For more information about the NIHR CRN visit their website LPT Staff changes Dr Pete Cross has been appointed as our new director of finance, performance and information. Pete had been acting in to the post for 10 months and was formerly LPT’s deputy director of finance. He holds significant NHS experience having previously worked in both health provider and health commissioning roles. He fought off tough national competition to secure the role. Nicky Mawer is our new head of communications. She took up the role in January after a competitive recruitment process. Nicky joined LPT in 2004 and has been a member of the communications team for over seven years. She began her communications career in the private sector, working in public relations. Nicky has also worked in advertising and direct marketing. Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust (LPT) provides a range of health and wellbeing services mainly for people living in Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland. Our Trust serves a population of one million people and and employs around 5,400 staff working in community health services, adult mental health services, families, children’s and young people’s services and learning disabilities services. For more information visit www.leicspart.nhs.uk or follow us on Twitter @LPTnhs To unsubscribe rom this newsletter email [email protected] marking your email Unsubscribe. 4 4
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