New integrated health and social care discharge unit at North Manchester General Hospital

John Saxby, Chief Executive of The Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, with Sir Howard Bernstein, Chief Executive of Manchester City Council

The Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust and Manchester City Council have launched a new, integrated health and social care discharge unit at North Manchester General Hospital in Crumpsall.

The new unit brings together teams from the Trust, Manchester, Bury and Rochdale Councils, North Manchester Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and voluntary sector to form a new, integrated team.

The service aims to provide better support and care for patients with long term or complex care needs by providing a more streamlined, seamless and integrated experience.

By sharing resources and expertise, it is hoped that this integration between the partner organisations will help make better use of financial resources and improve the overall patient experience by speeding up the discharge and readmissions process and ultimately by aiding the patient’s recovery and rehabilitation, whether at home or in the community.

Trust Chief Executive, John Saxby, said: “This is a marvellous example of how partner agencies can come together to overcome any barriers for those members of our community with the most complex health and social care needs.”

Liz Bruce, Manchester City Council’s Strategic Director for Adults Health & Wellbeing, said: “Manchester City Council is working across local authorities including Bury and Rochdale to improve hospital discharge for all Greater Manchester patients and to streamline resources. This new unit has to be the way forward. It shows what can be achieved by working more closely with our partners. We can see from what has been put in place here at North Manchester General Hospital real evidence of improvements in both outcomes for patients and also in terms of financial benefits.

“There is a lot of talk about integrated care, but what has been achieved here is to put that into practice. We have an ageing population who are living longer with long-term conditions and coupled with the financial pressures being faced by the public sector, things have to change. Scaling up integrated health and social care has to be part of the answer.”

Gillian McAllister, Divisional Nurse Manager at North Manchester General Hospital, who will be leading the new integrated team, said: “The team want to ensure that we deliver the best patient care to all patients by ensuring that patients get the care they need, at the right time and by the right professional. As patients pass through the different organisations, be it hospital or social care, there is often duplication of services, which can result in a poor experience for the patient.

“Our vision for the new unit is to improve access to health care by changing the way we deliver services and improving the overall outcome for patients. The challenge is to deliver an integrated system that works effectively and efficiently for staff and patients.”

Janet Hayes, Team Leader for Social Care, explains how the unit will work: “Our team members will attend daily meetings where they will discuss patient flow within different areas of the hospital. The aim will be to simplify access to care and have one team of staff who will co-ordinate and ‘track’ patients throughout their stay in hospital. They will plan the patient’s discharge from hospital with their families and carers in a way that manages their needs, expectations and reduces delay.”

The service has introduced better ways of tracking and monitoring patients, from the time they are admitted, right through to discharge and follow on care. And this new way of working is already starting to demonstrate good results.

Figures show that since the unit was formed, the number of patients staying over 15 days in hospital has been reduced by 46%, with a reduction of over 83% for patients staying over 100 days.

The team are keen to build on their success and are continuing to identify ways to streamline and improve the service with other partners in the community including GPs and neighbourhood care teams. These include plans to improve early intervention and prevention for those patients identified as being most at risk.