Local health service shortlisted for national award

NHS Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale (HMR) has been shortlisted for a national award for its service to help patients manage long term conditions, such as heart disease, lung disease and diabetes.

The Active Case Management service was selected from thousands of entries into this year’s Health Service Journal (HSJ) Awards which celebrate excellence, innovation and inspiration in healthcare.

As part of the service, case managers, also known as community matrons, provide a full assessment of the patient’s health and social needs, co-ordinate their care with all health and social care professionals and manage referrals, conduct regular medication reviews and provide assessments and advanced nursing support in care homes.

Dr Karen Clancy, Clinical Lead for the service at NHS HMR said: “Long term conditions are common across the whole borough and in many cases are the borough’s biggest killers. We want to help patients stay out of hospital as much as possible and help them maintain their independence, so we have designed a service that improves the patient’s experience by co-ordinating their health and social care and exploring innovative ways of delivering care at home.”

Since it began in 2004, the service has grown to a team of 20 and now includes 14 case managers, three advanced practitioners, a trainee advanced practitioner, a pharmacist and a pharmacy technician. The team has supported 1549 patients in their own homes and contributed to significant reductions in both hospital admissions and accident and emergency visits.

The team will now be heading down to London to present their service to a panel of judges before attending the national awards ceremony in November.

“We are delighted to have been shortlisted for this award”, added Dr Clancy, the team have been fantastic, and they are dedicated, supportive and hardworking and have the needs of the patient and their carer at the heart of the care they provide. We are looking forward to the ceremony in November.”

To be eligible for the service, patients need to be 18 years of age and registered with a GP within the NHS HMR area and experience two or more active long term conditions, four or more medicines, two or more hospital admissions in the last twelve months, two or more A&E attendances in the last twelve months, four or more GP contacts in the last six months.