Whittington Health NHS Trust shortlisted for national award

Whittington Health NHS Trust shortlisted for national award

20 Nov 2020

Whittington Health is recognised for its work with partners to join up services in Haringey and Islington

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Whittington Health NHS Trust is delighted to announce that it has been shortlisted for  Integrated Care Partnership of the Year at the Health Service Journal (HSJ) Awards. This recognises its outstanding contribution to healthcare by integrating its services with councils, GPs, and the voluntary sector to create healthier, more resilient local communities.

Whittington Health has been shortlisted despite the tough competition from over 1000 entries for its work with partners to introduce a more joined-up local system of care for patients. The Trust has been selected based on its ambition, visionary spirit and the demonstrable positive impact that it has had on patient and staff experiences.? 

Whittington Health is an Integrated Community Provider, delivering healthcare services within its community, as well as at its hospital site.
The Integrated Care Partnership project has tackled the challenges of long waiting times and high vacancies within community services and improved the quality of its services.  Working with their local partners the shortlisted project was designed in to:

• Develop a simpler, more joined up local support system for the local community
• Create integrated, multi-disciplinary teams who work together seamlessly
• Connect the workforce for the benefit of patients and staff
• Partner with the voluntary sector to co-ordinate local activity, networks and opportunities
 
New cross-organisational locality leadership teams were created as well as a new Integrated Forum where teams came together to discuss issues and develop innovative solutions such as bringing consultant expertise to nurse-led services in the community. 

Integrating the services has been a success with community teams now working closely with primary care and council services, so that discharges are timelier, smoother and services joined up. Primary Care Networks are now employing their district nurses on joint appointments for home care and the locality leadership teams work to provide a joint response to local needs which recently included co-designing COVID response services and an approach to managing COVID risks.

Jonathan Gardner, Director of Strategy at Whittington Health NHS Trust said:

“We are delighted to have been shortlisted for HSJ Integrated Care Partnership of the Year,

As a Trust, we believe that Better Never Stops and this project is an important example of that in action. There have been so many achievements during this project. Our plans were ambitious, but we are delighted that integrating care between community and hospital  services means more people can be safely treated in their own homes without needing a hospital admission. Discharges are now rarely delayed and our length of stay over 21 days has reduced by more than 40%.

We couldn’t do any of this without our wonderful team and our council and primary care and voluntary sector partners, and we thank them for their hard work.

We will continue to work together to improve the health of our population.”

This nomination comes off the back of the Care Quality Commission CQC rating the Trust’s community services as ‘Outstanding’ with 97.5% of its staff saying they would recommend its community services to friends and family and 95% of the Trust’s community staff believe that their role makes a positive difference to patients. There has also been a reduction in the community nursing vacancy rate from 39.4% to 8% in just one year.

In partnership with North London CCG (Islington) and Islington Local Authority, Whittington Health has also been nominated for the Integration of Social and Emotional Mental Health Services for children and young people in Islington, including the development of a Central Point of Access. This has been recognised within the same category of Integrated Care Partnership of the Year and in addition for a Health and Local Government Partnership Award.

Now in its 40th year, the HSJ Awards is the largest annual benchmarking and recognition programme for healthcare. Through a rigorous, fair and transparent judging process the awards produce a roll call of the best organisations, teams and people in the NHS and the wider health sector.
Winners will be selected ahead of the ceremony, which will take place virtually in March 2021.

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