Course empowers patients to self care

Healthcare workers are encouraging local patients to take more responsibility for their health as part of national self care week, which runs between 12-18 November.

This year’s self care week is themed ‘Self Care for life – growing older healthily’ and Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust is helping patients to manage their illnesses through the Expert Patients Programme (EPP).

Expert patients are people who aim to manage their conditions and treatment in partnership with healthcare professionals, enabling them to feel confident and in control of their lives. They are also able to communicate effectively with professionals, share responsibility for treatment and use their skills and knowledge to lead a fuller life.

The programme is a seven week course lasting up to three hours for people over 18, who are living with long-term health conditions, re-occurring illnesses or who are carers for someone living with a long-term health condition and whose health is affected by their caring. This includes conditions such as Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disorder (COPD), asthma and diabetes.

There are two self-management programmes, one aimed at supporting the patient with the long-term condition and the other which aims to support the carers of patients with long-term conditions. It’s not a self-help group but a disciplined programme led by lay tutors who themselves have long-term health problems and/or experience of supporting someone who has.

Both courses aim to support and empower individuals by giving them the confidence to take more responsibility and self-manage their health better on a daily basis, whilst encouraging them to work better with health and social care professionals. The course doesn’t focus on the condition itself but looks at ways to positively manage symptoms brought about by long-term health problems including stress, anxiety, depression, pain shortness of breath and difficult emotions.

Julie Dawson, Expert Patient Manager for Pennine Care, said: “Self care is all about individuals taking responsibility for their own health and well being with support from health and social care professionals. Over the last year the trust has helped more than 500 local people with long-term conditions through the expert patient programme.

“Feedback has been excellent with many people saying that they feel more confident, in control and positive about coping with their condition. Others have commented how they’ve noticed a reduction in the severity of symptoms such as pain, fatigue, depression, stress and anxiety. The benefits have also significantly reduced visits to GPs, A&E and hospital Outpatients.

“As well as the obvious time and financial benefits for the NHS, self care can have a massive impact on those people who embrace it, and particularly for those living with long-term conditions, as the support they receive enables them to live more independently and in turn, to have a better quality of life.”

More than one in ten people admit to using the NHS accident and emergency services when they don’t need to, and with minor ailment appointments for conditions like coughs and colds at GP surgeries accounting for almost 20 per cent of their workload, the unnecessary financial costs to the NHS is running into billions of pounds every year.
The self care campaign’s key objective is to meet NHS patient needs rather than demand and to bring an end to a culture of dependency on the NHS by enabling people to take responsibility for their own general health. This is being achieved through education on lifestyle choices, information on dealing with minor ailments, as well as understanding and dealing with long-term conditions.

The Expert Patients Programme recently won the Pride of Rochdale Borough Award for its continuous efforts to support lay tutors to deliver the initiative.

For more information on Expert Patient training courses in the Rochdale call 0161 6551454.