Funding for care homes
Charity will hand over £75,000
An NHS Lanarkshire team are to get a £75,000 funding boost to improve the way incontinence is treated in care homes.
The Health Foundation charity are supporting 20 healthcare projects across the UK as part of their £1.5 million programme, Innovating for Improvement.
Their aim is to improve healthcare delivery and the way people manage their own healthcare by developing innovative ideas and putting them into practice.
The initiative, being piloted by partners in Lanarkshire, will aim to improve patient experience in care homes by focusing on new approaches to continence care.
Research has identified incontinence as a risk factor that increases pressure damage, infection and falls in older people. The initiative, in essence, will allow care home staff to improve the quality of continence care through better recording of processes.
Over the course of the project the team will develop their idea and approach, put it into practice and gather evidence about how the innovation improves the quality of healthcare.
The team will be led by Alice Macleod, nurse advisor with NHS National Services Scotland, Jean Donaldson, associate nurse director at NHS Lanarkshire, with Irene Barkby, director of nursing, midwifery and allied health professions at NHS Lanarkshire, as executive sponsor.
Alice Macleod said: “This project is an example of how National Services Scotland is working with health boards and wider stakeholders such as Care Home Liaison, Care Inspectorate and Health Protection Scotland. The expertise among all involved in this project will help support care home staff to implement this innovative quality improvement initiative.”
Irene Barkby added: “Health and social care integration is now in place across Lanarkshire and our focus is on tailoring care and support around the individual.
“We are committed to continuing improvement by sharing knowledge, expertise and looking at new, innovative ways of doing things where necessary. Patient safety is at the centre of everything we do.
“This programme embodies that ethos in that it involves several partners working together and striving to create safer, healthier, independent lives for those in our care.”
Sarah Henderson, associate director from the Health Foundation, said: “We are very excited to be working with such high-calibre of teams, who all have great, innovative ideas.
“As an organisation we are keen to support innovation at the frontline across all sectors of health and care services, and I am pleased that we will be able to support these ambitious teams to develop and test their ideas over the next year. Our aim is to promote the effectiveness and impact of the teams’ innovations and show how they have succeeded in improving the quality of healthcare, with the intention of these being widely adopted across the UK.”