Health

'It’s so rewarding': the new role improving care home residents' health


Before she moved into her care home, Maureen Bowers enjoyed a lively social life with friends and family. But her worsening lung disease meant she needed oxygen on hand 24 hours a day and it was proving increasingly difficult for her to stay active.

Since last autumn, however, Bowers has rediscovered some of her old vim. Thanks to an innovative £1m pilot scheme operating in care homes in Bolton, where she lives, she has regained the capacity and confidence to get out and about.

“Just getting washed and dressed was tiring her out,” recalls Kelly Champkin, manager of the Meadow Bank House home in Great Lever, Bolton. “Now she goes to church and she’s managed to get across the road to the local pub for lunch with her friends. She spent Christmas with her family and she’s just back from another stay.”

The difference is being put down to Suzanne Halliwell, Meadow Bank’s “enhanced care coordinator” (ECC), who is one of 41 staff given the role and being funded under the scheme across 16 participating homes. Chosen from care workers already employed by the homes, the ECCs are given the training, the authority and – critically – the time to focus on improving residents’ health and wellbeing.

Halliwell has been able to work with Bowers, 76, in a concentrated way, initially spending up to an hour with her each morning while she got ready to face the day. She has also been able to call in outside professionals to deliver the tailored therapy Bowers has needed to rebuild her strength.

One notable measure of progress made is that Bowers, who is diabetic, has taken back control of her insulin administration and the associated paperwork, which she keeps meticulously.

For Halliwell, the job satisfaction is huge. Another resident she has been working with, a 72-year-old man who suffered a severe stroke, has recently taken his first steps for seven years after a course of intensive physiotherapy that she arranged. He has an ambition to leave Meadow Bank to move to Tenerife.

“He’s pushing himself. I don’t think he would have got this far unless he really wanted to,” says Halliwell, who has worked at the home since 2012 but has been in social care for more than 20 years. “It’s so rewarding to be able to help people who have that kind of determination.”

Formal evaluation of the scheme includes routine monitoring of residents for mobility, dressing, eating and drinking, toilet use and personal hygiene. Anecdotal evidence is fed back at regular meetings of ECCs from across Bolton. It is hoped there will be an emerging picture of improved outcomes, contrasting favourably with that for homes not included in the scheme.

Ann Cunliffe, Bolton council’s executive cabinet member for people, says: “Although the scheme is relatively new, it is already making a difference to people’s lives. For example, several residents can now walk independently to the dining room instead of relying on a care assistant for support.”

However, the big win for the scheme, which is backed by both the council and the local NHS, will come if it shows clear reductions in hospital attendances by residents of the participating homes, in ambulance callouts for falls and in unscheduled GP visits for issues such as pressure ulcers.

Jake Rollin, director of commissioned care at HC-One, the care provider which runs Meadow Bank, is convinced this will be the case. But he acknowledges the challenge of quantifying the benefit. “We are hoping that NHS staff will spot the tangible difference it is making and will speak up,” he says. “It’s a very elegant form of commissioning that I can see being rolled out across the country.”

The scheme, part of Bolton’s wider “care home excellence” programme, is being underwritten to the tune of £966,000 over two years by the Greater Manchester Transformation Fund, which is supporting innovation in health and care under the Manchester devolution programme.

A key plank of the scheme is testing the capacity of care workers to step up to the ECC role. They receive enhanced training in aspects of care such as moving and handling, strength and balance exercises and use of equipment, and are paid about £1 an hour above the national minimum wage rate received by their care assistant colleagues. All their pay costs are met by the scheme, enabling the homes to recruit additional staff to replace them.

Across town from Meadow Bank at the Four Seasons care home in Breightmet, also run by HC-One, ECC Jade Power enthuses about the strong working relationships she has been able to forge with therapists and other external health professionals. “They ask for us by name now,” she says. “We’ve become part of the fabric.”

That may prove a challenge if the scheme is not somehow continued when the two-year funding runs out. As Halliwell, proudly wearing her ECC sweatshirt, says: “I was ready for this. I don’t want to go back to caring.”



READ SOURCE

Leave a Reply

This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this site, you accept our use of cookies.