InTouchIssue 6, May 2015

Helping you keep well

New iNurse scheme is the picture of health in Doncaster

Local GP runs London Marathon for cancer charity

Dr Nick Tupper: how the CCG spends£428 million

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Ensuring a ‘good death’ in DoncasterNew home care support team to look after those nearing the end of their life. Page 4

Monthly news from your local Clinical Commissioning Group

Celebrating Equality, Diversity and Human Rights Week

We celebrated Equality, Diversity and Human Rights Week (EDHRW) last week. This was the fourth year the awareness event was observed. The aim of EDHRW is to promote a fairer and more diverse NHS for both staff and the local communi-ty. To mark the occasion, we made two short films available to staff which highlight the importance of equality and diversity and encour-age dialogue across the organisa-tion. The CCG works with a number of community support resources and seldom heard groups to engage and understand diverse needs across the borough. This feedback informs the commissioning work of the organisation and helps it to address local health inequalities. People may experience

discrimination because of their particular characteristics such as: age, gender, disability, race, sexuality, religion and beliefs.

Examples of innovative work with Doncaster’s diverse communities includes the translation of cancer awareness materials for Muslims, and support work with refugee groups. Curtis Henry, Equalities and En-gagement Officer, said: “In Doncas-ter we serve a very multi-cultural and diverse community so it is important that we champion diver-sity, equality and human rights and observe events such as this. “Equality and Diversity week pro-vides a fantastic opportunity for all our staff to promote the work they do, and embed equality and diversity within the heart of our commissioning process.”

What’s new?

Welcome to May’s edition of InTouch, your window into the CCG.We’re almost six months into the year already, where has the time gone? As Summer beckons, we’ve got plenty of new and exciting developments happening within the organisation which we would love to share with you.

In this issue you can read about the new, first-of-a-kind, end of life care team that has just launched in Doncaster, as well as how cutting-edge technology is helping GPs consult with patients in the borough. We’re also extremely proud to share local GP Dr David Crichton’s achievement of finishing the London Marathon for the Macmillan Cancer Support charity.

We’ve got lots of new and exciting projects coming up in the near future, so please read on and enjoy this month’s issue. The next InTouch will be available 17 June.

Dr Nick TupperChairman Doncaster CCG

www.doncasterccg.nhs.uk@DoncasterCCG NHSDoncasterCCG

May 2015InTouch

New iNurse scheme is a picture of healthHealth worker Shelley Casson is pioneering the use of ‘virtual’ GP consultations to ease the pressure on local surgeries as one of Doncaster’s first ‘iNurses’.

Hi-tech Shelley, a practice nurse at The Medical Centre in the town centre, visits elderly and frail patients at home or in care homes armed with an iPad that enables her to keep in eye-to-eye contact with GP colleagues back at the surgery.

She said: “My role is to see patients who are acutely unwell, have chronic long-term health problems or have just had a stay in hospital. The aim is to monitor their health to avoid any deterioration that could result in an emergency admission to hospital.

“If I need some advice on a

patient’s condition I simply contact The Medical Centre’s duty doctor by facetime on my iPad and we have a two-way visual conversation. The image quality is excellent and the GP can see and talk to both the patient and me.”

Every Tuesday she visits Bentley’s Positive Steps, a social care centre for people who have had a hospital stay but are not quite ready to return home, where she can check on up to 15 patients in a morning, calling the GP for on-screen consultations as necessary.

iNurses are being trialled at GP practices in the South East of Doncaster, funded by the CCG.

Dr Pat Barbour, a GP at The Medical Centre, said: “This technology enables me to see patients in my surgery while Shelley is carrying out community visits. It makes

Practice nurse Shelley Casson visits patient with her iPad

Services in Doncaster

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me doubly effective as I can break off to talk directly to Shelley if she needs any advice.

“A GP colleague of mine recently carried out a virtual examination of a patient’s finger while he was in surgery and Shelley was with the patient a few miles away. Following his instructions, Shelley carried out the physical examination and he was able to diagnose the problem as a result of what she relayed back to him.

“We are currently having problems recruiting GPs in Doncaster so we have to be creative in how we use our existing GPs’ time and the iNurse system is proving very effective.”

A decision on whether to roll out the iNurse system wider in the borough will be taken in the future.

Meanwhile, Dr Pat Barbour observes and consults using Facetime

Keep in touch with the CCG on social mediaWhy not keep up-to-date with your CCG by adding us on social media? It’s quick and simple! Follow us on Twitter @doncasterccg and on Facebook with /nhsdoncasterccg. Keep engaged and get in touch with us, we favourite, re-tweet and share lots of information every day.

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May 2015InTouch

New home care support team to look after those nearing the end of their life

A first-of-its kind team of home care workers has started in Doncaster, initially to help look after people who are in the last few days of their life.

Acting on referrals from healthcare professionals, the Woodfield 24 Care Services staff will be called in - often at very short notice - to provide care and support to those who want to die at home rather than at hospital or in a hospice.

Team members will go into people’s homes to help out with everyday household needs, where they will work alongside district nurses and other community staff.

Jo Keyes, Registered Manager from Flourish Enterprises, which manages the new service, said: The care staff will start off helping to look after people whose health is quickly deteriorating to the

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May 2015InTouch

point that they are not expected to live beyond the following few days. But the service will eventually be extended to include those who are in the final few weeks of their life.

“They will provide ‘tailored’ personal care for each person dependent on their needs, helping out with home-based tasks so the patient and their family can be as comfortable as possible during what can be a very distressing and emotional time.

“This could include, for example, feeding and washing the person and providing night sitting support to give their family some rest. But there will be a number of other tasks they could help with as well, such as taking the family dog for a walk if that’s needed. The key aim of the service is to look after a patient’s social care needs while the nursing teams

lead on the clinical care.”

Every year around 3,000 people die in Doncaster. Currently many people die in hospital because there has not been a dedicated social care service to help out if they have wanted to end their days at home.

Dr Nick Tupper, Chair of NHS Doncaster Clinical Commissioning Group, which is funding the service, said: “This service, which we believe is unique within the NHS, now gives patients a choice. The team can respond at very short notice and provide vital home-based support to patients, their families and carers through the all-important last part of someone’s life. We want Doncaster people to have a good death, surrounded by their loved ones and at a place of their choice.”

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Dementia friendly Doncaster celebrates Awareness WeekAn alliance of Dementia friendly partners want to remind people that ‘life doesn’t end when dementia begins.’

Doncaster celebrated Dementia Awareness Week this month. The event featured a number of recreational and sporting activities, with many of them having their normal charges suspended during the week so that new attendees could get involved in the fun.

Doncaster Council and local NHS organisations are spearheading the drive to make the borough ‘dementia friendly’, with the support of a growing

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Local GP Dr David Crichton has completed the London Marathon in a fantastic three hours and 38 minutes, raising in excess of £2,000 for the Macmillan Cancer Support charity.

The sporty doc, a GP at the Bentley Practice, took on the endurance dash in memory of his grandparents and patients who died of the illness and also works closely with the Macmillan Survivorship Partnership (MSP).

David said: “The reaction to my entry in the London Marathon has been overwhelming. I’ve had so many kind donations and I’m very happy to have completed the run for such a fantastic cause.

David starting preparation for the annual run on 1 December and booked himself in for a ‘warm-up’ marathon in Rome just five weeks before the big event in London.

Donate to Macmillan Cancer Support charity by heading to https://www.justgiving.com/Doccrichton1/

Local GP runs London Marathon

band of local businesses and organisations that are changing the way they operate to help people living with dementia.

A key aim of the week is to encourage more local people to become a Dementia Friend, which involves taking part in a short awareness-raising information session to help them understand how they can help people with the disease.

Latest figures reveal that more that 4,700 Doncaster people are now dementia friends. You can find more information about how to join them at: www.dementiafriends.org.uk.

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Dr Nick Tupper writes a column for the Doncaster Star each Monday. You can read all of Dr Tupper’s blogs at www.drnicktupper.com and also follow him on Twitter @drnicktupper

I’ve recently had the pleasure of chairing our members’ annual general meeting, marking our second full year as a clinical commissioning group (CCG).

It was a great opportunity to look back on what we have achieved in 2014/15 and to share our plans for the current year. CCGs are membership organisations and our members are the 43 GP practices that are based in Doncaster borough.

Those practices and the GPs that work at them are key to helping drive forward the health improvements we want to make in Doncaster.

In fact, many local GPs combine their roles at practice with providing advice and expertise to the CCG. Dr Marco Pieri, for example, is a GP at Scawthorpe but he’s also the CCG’s cancer lead, responsible for taking forward our plans to detect cancer earlier so patients can have fast access to treatment and

Why not become a member of Doncaster CCG and have a say in how services are commissioned?http://tinyurl.com/donccg

Got a minute?

a fighting chance of beating the disease.

Similarly, Dr Karen Wagstaffe is GP at Barnburgh but her special responsibility at the CCG is for looking at ways of improving and enhancing dementia services. We want local people who have dementia to be diagnosed earlier so they can have the support they need to live well with the disease.

Understanding the role of a CCG can be difficult if you’re not familiar with how the NHS functions. Most people know their local surgery and their local hospital as that’s where most of their contact with health workers takes place. Our role is more behind the scenes – planning, organising and overseeing the health services Doncaster people need, and last year we spent our £428 million budget doing just that. It funded, such as, countless operations at Doncaster Royal Infirmary and Bassetlaw hospitals and around £60 million paid for millions of prescription medicines for Doncaster people.

So, in addition to being a clinician, I work closely with manager colleagues at the CCG to keep a tight rein on the finances as the NHS does not

have a bottomless pit of money. Fortunately, in Doncaster we have good financial management systems in place to ensure we do not spend more than we have in the bank, but it does mean that we often have to make difficult funding decisions in order to remain in the black.

Our budget worked at over £1,380 for every person registered with a GP practice in Doncaster.

In return we spent around £1.17m a day –or over £1,000 a minute – funding a myriad of health services, from district nurses to midwives and much, much more.

Managing the NHS’s finances is tricky at the best of times as we don’t have a crystal ball to see what’s around the corner. But the good news is that in 2014/15 we met all our financial targets and finished the year bang on track, with just £11,000 left from the £428 million we started with.

Deciding how to spend £428 million

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May 2015InTouch

Death is rarely spoken about, it’s almost a taboo subject. We would like to see that change in Doncaster so that death can be openly talked about and planned for, just as it is in many other cultures.

A ‘good death’ may seem an unusual term to use, as losing someone close is an upsetting experience. At NHS Doncaster

CCG we’re taking forward plans to improve local end-of-life care, working with the borough’s two health trusts, and we need your input.

Let us know what matters most to you during this difficult time. What would you want for yourself, or a loved one, when facing this all-important final part of life?

Please find the what is a ‘good death’? survey here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/doncgooddeath

Talking points: what is a good death?

Volunteers are needed to help a Doncaster hospice run its yearly cycling event – which is crucial to its annual fund-raising efforts. St John’s Hospice staff are busy organising this year’s Cycle Sportive, which takes place on July 5 – but need volunteers to help make the event run smoothly on the day. The event sees cyclists tackling either a 65 or 100 mile bike ride to help raise money for the hospice. The event is aimed at keen and leisure cyclists looking for a challenge. Both routes start at St Catherine’s House in Woodfield Park, off Tickhill Road, Balby. To volunteer, please contact melanie.hewitt@rdash.nhs.uk. For more info on the cycle, visit http://tinyurl.com/stjohncycle

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Doncaster woman champions breast screening campaign

Finger-tip check-in for hospitalPatients attending cardiology, chest and gastro outpatient clinics at Doncaster Royal Infirmary will be the first to use a new check-in system for their clinic appointments.

Starting on Wednesday 20 May 2015 patients attending clinics in the hospital’s South Block will be able to check themselves in with a touch of a finger at a new electronic kiosk.

The system called ‘InTouch’ is being piloted by Doncaster and Bassetlaw Hospitals, for three months, with the aim of giving patients a faster appointment check-in service and to improve clinic waiting times. Doctors and health staff will also be able to pinpoint exactly where their patients are and record the

outcome of each patient consul-tation quickly.

Linda Watts, iHospital Pro-gramme Manager at the Trust, said: “The InTouch system is one of the many things we are doing, through the iHospital Programme, to enhance the patient experience and improve our systems to release more time for patient care by taking advantage of the technologies already out there.”

“It’s very similar to the systems already in place in busy airports which give people the opportu-nity to check themselves in and beat the queues. We are looking forward to trying out this new system to help us to create a more relaxed clinic waiting area for all our patients and their families – enhancing their expe-rience.”

Patients using the new check-in system for the first time will be fully supported by the Trust’s team of receptionists.

A Doncaster woman who re-cently had treatment for breast cancer has put herself forward to be a screening champion for the borough.

Kath attended a routine mam-mogram appointment at the age of 63 after receiving her invitation in the post. Her scan detected breast cancer, even though she had no signs or symptoms. Kath, now all clear, is urging women to screen.

The campaign encourages wom-en aged between 50 and 70 to attend important breast screen-ing appointments in a bid to detect breast cancer early and offer a better chance of success-ful treatment and full recovery.

Promotional materials are cur-rently being distributed to Don-caster GPs to display in their practices. The breast screening unit can be reached on 01302 320112.