HSJ Awards 2014: Primary Care Innovation

Partners4Health: Hospital@Home

GP-led NHS body Partners4Health delivers the Hospital@Home service to patients of Western Cheshire CCG who would otherwise require hospital admission.

The service was developed to tackle the rising numbers of patients being admitted to hospital, and a lack of options to manage acutely ill patients at home.

More than 50 GPs attended focus groups to allow the delivery team to understand the admissions pressures they faced and how they would like to make referrals and receive discharge information. Online polls were carried out for further information.

A project board was set up including senior members from the CCG, Partners4Health, Countess of Chester Trust, the local authority, a community provider and Northwest Ambulance Trust.

Every one of 692 patients surveyed about the project was satisfied with the care they received, with just one out of 671 saying they did not want to use Hospital@Home in the future. Referral-to-treatment times were significantly below those for traditional routes.

More than £500,000 of net savings were recorded in 18 months. The scheme could be replicated in other areas.

Judges were impressed by the level of cost savings. They described the project as an “innovative approach that bridges to the gap between primary and secondary care”.

Other finalists’ projects:

• AlChem Pharmacy – Tackling unnecessary A&E admissions through better primary care team messaging
• Bradford City Clinical Commissioning Group – Bradford beating diabetes
• DMC Healthcare - Evidence Based Innovation: the role of the primary care pharmacist within general practice
• Haverstock Healthcare - Haverstock Healthcare: GP Consortium
• Northern, Eastern Western Devon CCG and The Lindsay Leg Club Foundation – Barnstaple Leg Club: commissioning the Leg Club model
• Ipswich and East Suffolk CCG – The i-van
• Valentine Health Partnership – Integrating health visiting with inner London GP practice
• Walsall Clinical Commissioning Group – Pharmaceutical screening of repeat prescriptions by primary care practice-based pharmacists in general practice
• West Leicestershire Clinical Commissioning Group – Improving the quality of primary medical care among practices through a clinically led practice appraisal programme
• Worcestershire Health and Care Trust – Wyre Forest care home support team