Successful Outcomes

 

• Partnership working with immediate benefit for our patients

• Cost neutral implementation

• Autonomy to order equipment for our patients at point of need i.e. as soon as they present with a potential pressure problem

• Catch patients outside of the District Nurse remit (otherwise would be missed)

 

Why we had to change

 

Primary care across Somerset has no direct access to Pressure Relieving equipment for their patients such as pressure rings, elbow pads etc.  Following a clinical staff training session when nurses raised the problem of having no access and how patients were potentially at risk, we decided to do something about it. 

 

Our challenge was how to access the service on a cost neutral basis.

 

What we did

 

Our nurses met with other nurses across our local Federation of 5 Practices and it became apparent that it wasn’t just Burnham.  We then went ahead and organised a meeting with Somerset Partnership (Provider organisation with District Nurses), CCG and Milbrook (company providing equipment) along with our lead nurse and Practice Nurse.

 

We were able to discuss clinical governance, operational budget, who would hold the budget and procure a new contract with Milbrook who would then be able to authorise access to the patient assessment tools.

 

We then designed a Pressure Relieving leaflet for patients and carers to raise awareness to them of the service. We trained the prescribers and set them up on the ordering system. 

 

Our practice was designated to be the pilot.  If it was to be successful the next steps would be to cascade to the rest of the federation of practices.

 

We developed an action tracker.  Our Treatment room nurses visited Milbrook to learn about the different systems.  Following this trip we became aware that Milbrook held reusable equipment which was rarely used.  Milbrook were happy for us to use this equipment at no cost which met our desire to be sustainable and to use reusable equipment whenever possible. All we had to pay for was the cost of delivery.

 

Future

 

We now aim to organise a local Federation-wide ordering of Pressure Relieving reusable equipment and re-engage with Somerset partnership to join up with the District Nurses so that we all can benefit from this service.