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Ensuring health and care services are sustainable is central to the work of the new care models programme, alongside providing that care closer to home. Specialist NHS services are under pressure to find ways to ensure they are sustainable for the longer term, whilst providing high quality care closer to where people live. Moorfields’ vanguard has been exploring how this can be achieved.
Moorfields, a leading provider of eye health services in the UK, treats people in 32 locations in and around London in a variety of healthcare settings so that expert treatment can be provided closer to patients’ homes.
The vanguard has developed a ‘networked care partnership’ which they believe can be replicated to sustain specialist eye services and improve access for patients across the country.
A networked care partnership is where specialist consultants and multidisciplinary staff, in this case from Moorfields, provide local care for patients in smaller hospital settings. Not only do people receive their care nearer to home but the partnership ensures they receive the same quality of care, wherever they are treated.
The learning from Moorfields will help develop future networks across the NHS in a planned way at pace
Drawing on 20 years’ experience of delivering eye care services across multiple sites, Moorfields is keen to share their knowledge and experience to support others who might be considering a similar partnership approach for specialist services. When establishing a service in a new setting, Moorfields was keen to understand what makes the biggest difference for patients, staff and partner organisations.
The right fit
They documented how you get things right first time, ensuring you identify the best way to build and sustain a locally provided specialist service.
As an acute care collaborative vanguard, Moorfields has gathered all of this intelligence and experience to produce a networked care ‘toolkit’, an online resource with evidence-based learning that others, for instance trusts and sustainability and transformation partnerships (STPs), can use to evaluate whether a networked model of care could be beneficial for their smaller clinical services and is the right strategic fit for their future sustainability.
The toolkit has practical advice and guidance on how organisations can establish their own network in a way best suited to them.
Moorfields has shown that through the networked care model, patients have greater access to locally delivered, clinically sustainable services. Hospitals can become more sustainable and care is supported by effective and sustainable governance structures, underpinned by a strong organisational culture.
The learning from Moorfields will help develop future networks across the NHS in a planned way at pace. Sharing this good practice, through the toolkit, will enable others to understand the opportunities and risks of this way of working and how it can support patients and staff.
For all the latest news about the new care models programme and vanguards, visit: www.england.nhs.uk/vanguards.
Samantha Jones, Director is new care models programme @SamanthaJNHS)
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