New joint pilot at Rochdale Infirmary Urgent Care Centre

Rochdale Infirmary Urgent Care Centre

A new pilot scheme is up and running at Rochdale Infirmary Urgent Care Centre, which supports improved patient care and avoids unnecessary hospital admissions throughout Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale.

The scheme, which started in November 2016, provides an emergency response vehicle manned by a multi-disciplinary team of healthcare professionals that goes out in the community to people’s homes.

Known as HEATT (Heywood Middleton Rochdale Emergency Assessment & Treatment Team) this consists of a senior paramedic and an advanced nurse practitioner from the local Urgent Community Care Team who have access to specialist services for patients, that is, pharmacy\medication support, social care, access to a local GP and enhanced diagnostics.

The team respond to emergency calls and assess and treat people in their own home and where safe, maintain them in their own home in a ‘virtual bed’ or community setting.

HEATT calls are identified from IT systems following 999 calls to the ambulance service for appropriate patients aged 18 years or over who reside within the Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale area. The HEATT service aims to target calls where there is an opportunity to avoid an emergency admission or A&E attendance, and provide care for patients in their own home or community setting rather than an acute hospital.

HEATT is a collaborative project between the community health and social care teams in HMR, provided by The Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, its partners and the North West Ambulance Service NHS Trust (NWAS), funded by Heywood Middleton and Rochdale Clinical Commissioning Group.

Elizabeth Bigwood, Lead Advanced Nurse Practitioner at Rochdale Infirmary said of HEATT:
“This collaboration supports patients in a Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale borough, who require urgent assessment and treatment and have requested support from NWAS. This rapid response team, comprising of a senior paramedic and an advanced nurse practitioner ensures that care is brought to patients, and we have moved away from transporting patients to where care is traditionally provided, that is, hospitals.

“Since the service commenced at the end of November 2016, the HEATT service has responded to 133 emergencies and has supported 117 (88 percent) of these patients by providing care in their own home or community setting, therefore avoiding the very busy
Emergency Departments and not requiring an acute hospital bed, despite a high proportion of these cases having high clinical needs.”

The feedback from patients and carers has been phenomenal so far. Mrs Ross, 86, who had suffered a fall in her home and was suspected of having a fracture, was managed with the support of the Radiology team at Rochdale Infirmary, who undertook her diagnostic tests as an outpatient. The HEATT team contacted her with the results and admitted her into a bed in her own home for a few days of physiotherapy and enhanced pain management.

Mrs Ross said: “You read about these ideas but now I have seen it first-hand. This service is brilliant. I don’t need to go to hospital, which is not what I want. I want to stay in my own home, my own bed. You have managed my needs around me and not around the hospital. You are all angels.”

Heywood Middleton and Rochdale Clinical Commissioning Group (HMR CCG), chairman and local GP Dr Chris Duffy said: “The HEATT service offers a life line to poorly patients in Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale whilst helping to relieve pressures on local NHS services. The service enables medical care fast, where appropriate an alternative to a hospital admission and improved patient care – it’s a win, win. This is an excellent example of joint working with local providers and if this pilot proves successful it will be a huge benefit to the local community.”

Initially the HEATT service is available between the hours of 10am-6pm Monday to Friday although the aim is to increase operational hours to a maximum of 12 hours, seven days a week.