Consultant wins award for innovation

Dr Pradeep Sethi receives the innovation award from Fiona Phillips and Mark Burns of Philips

A consultant in elderly care medicine at Fairfield General Hospital in Bury has scooped an award at Pennine Acute Trust’s third annual staff awards event for his innovative work to pilot and secure funding for a nursing home outreach service.

At a special final awards ceremony at Manchester City FC Etihad Stadium, TV presenter, journalist and Alzheimer’s campaigner, Fiona Phillips, announced that Dr Pradeep Sethi had won the award.

In response to a high number of elderly care admissions from local nursing homes into the hospital, Dr Sethi worked with primary care commissioners to pilot and secure recurrent support for a nursing home outreach service.

Originally targeting four local nursing homes in Bury, the pilot reduced admission rates by 50% in the first six months and more recently has been recognised as saving the local health economy in excess of £300,000 through admission avoidance and reduced length of stay.

The initiative has now been expanded to other health localities as a beacon service development. Dr. Sethi’s project has been described as demonstrating a clear commitment to an outward looking secondary care model through clinical leadership.

Nursing home residents now receive a specialist review and support to obtain a tailored care plan. Significant assistance is also given to nursing home staff and GPs around improved medical management of patients in the community setting and end of life issues, thus avoiding unnecessary hospital admissions, which can be distressing for patients and their families.

Dr Sethi said: “As a care of the elderly physician I have long felt the need to improve the quality of care of elderly patients who very often get admitted to hospital when their condition could be easily managed in their own place of abode. It is well known that inappropriate admissions to hospital, if reduced, would save valuable funds for the NHS, reduce infections in patients and prevent unnecessary complications.

“With this in mind, in April 2010 we started an outreach service to nursing and residential homes in the Bury area, providing two consultant sessions a week and covering around 500 beds. The aim was to provide specialist input, work alongside the GPs to improve quality of care, undertake advanced care planning decisions after discussions with the families and support the nursing and residential home staff in trying to reduce unnecessary hospital admissions.

“In the first year of the service we were able to show a 52% reduction in acute emergency medical admissions; and in the second year a 34% reduction was achieved. In addition, we were also able to save 450 bed days in the first year and 536 bed days in the second year. Feedback from the staff at the residential homes, the relatives and the patients has been very positive and the service is now fully funded by NHS Bury.

“After seeing the success of the Bury Service, NHS Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale (PCT) has now asked us to provide a similar service in their area which we have undertaken since April 2012.

“This is a good example of what can be achieved by closer working between primary and secondary care, not only resulting in improved patient care, but also saving much needed funds. The service is provided by two consultants in Bury (Dr Sethi and Dr Abbas) and the NHS HMR service is provided by five consultants (Dr Manku, Dr Pradhan, Dr Fletcher, Dr Solomon and Dr Sridharan).

“It was indeed a great honour to receive this award, not only as a recognition of the success of the service, but also the wider advantages of improving links between primary and secondary care, forming relationships with the nursing and residential home staff, liaising with relatives who express their gratitude so profusely. I also thoroughly enjoyed the Award Evening and the hospitality of all the sponsors.”

The Staff Awards 2012, held on Wednesday 20 June, consisted of 12 categories which recognised the very best of patient care, dedication and innovation across the Trust’s five hospital sites and its 10,000 staff.

The event was fully paid for and supported by a number of sponsors including: Vinci; NG Bailey; Weightmans; Mitie; APS Group; Philips; G2 Speech; NHS Discounts, Corporate Design Company and iSOFT. The award for innovation was sponsored by Philips.