Neighbourhood Care – Living Well in Communities blog

Neighbourhood Care Steering Group, 3rd October – Challenges and Support

Published on 23 October 201826 October 2018 by Living Well In CommunitiesLeave a comment

On the 3^rd October we held our latest Neighbourhood Care Steering Group at the Edinburgh Training & Conference Venue. There was great representation from the Neighbourhood Care test sites [including Western Isles, NHS Highland, Aberdeen City, Scottish Borders, Stirling & Clacks and Cornerstone] as well as national supportive partners [Scottish Government, Buurtzorg Britain & Ireland, SSSC, Care Inspectorate and NES].

The aim of the day was to openly discuss the challenges and support that National Partners and test sites can offer each other.

Defining our Measures

Thomas Monaghan (HIS) and Fee Hodgkiss (Scottish Government) revisited the vision set out in 2016 for Neighbourhood Care, in a letter from Scottish Government. Both discussed whether the principles are still relevant today, and what they mean in a Scottish context. They offered the opinion that as a set of principles, they were solid and aligned with the pillars of providing person-centred, ‘good, old-fashioned’ care. The group agreed that the principles still applied in a Scottish context and there was a general consensus that the principle of person-centred care was most important.

Logic Model-Measurement Mapping

The group were led through a cross mapping exercise carried out by the ihub team that links the original desired outcomes and impact of the programme’s logic model with the current measures being undertaken in local test sites.

The measures were themed into six categories:

Re-ablement
Person satisfaction/experience
Staff satisfaction
Procedural tasks
Workforce structure
Professional autonomy/self-management

The exercise highlighted that there may be areas of measurement that were not currently being recorded. Key to this part of the morning was to facilitate agreement on potential measures for Neighbourhood Care Teams at a national level, and the group discussed this and what measures could potentially ‘fill the gaps’ if necessary.

There was consensus within the group that the themes were good. The group also highlighted the need for “Third Sector/communities capacity building contribution” to be added as a 7^th theme for measurement.

The group agreed that further discussion focussing on the measures within the document would be of benefit, and a small sub-group will be formed to carry this out. This group will meet and develop a set of common measures for all sites based on these (now seven) highlighted themes before the next steering group in November. If you have any suggestions, please get in touch with your local lead or contact hcis.livingwell@nhs.net

Challenges and Support

The group was asked to reflect on the nine common themes of challenges that sites were reporting and were asked to consider opportunities for peer support and/or offers of support from national partners.

The group selected three themes and spent the remainder of the afternoon discussing these:

Number 4: Ability to empower teams to be self-managing

Number 2: Competing Priorities and Communicating

Number 7: Lack of platform / regular reporting structure

“Self-organising” came up as a key challenge being faced by the test sites. The group agreed there is potential for some rich learning that could be shared from Buurtzorg Britain and Ireland and Cornerstone’s approach and experience with this.

HIS will work alongside Britain Buurtzorg and Ireland and Cornerstone to develop a series of recorded WebExes that will provide further information on this (and other fundamental topics) and will share these on our website. Watch out for a programme of dates for these, which we’ll communicate soon.

Care Experience Tool

In order to support sites to measure ‘experience’ (versus satisfaction) a Care Experience Tool (developed in collaboration between the LWiC and Evidence and Indicators team within HIS) was shared in a draft form. The tool is a set of open questions that aim to explore compassionate care, and are directly related to the new Health and Social Care Standards. Aberdeen City, Stirling and Clackmannanshire and Cornerstone were interested in testing out the tool. It’s great that our public partners have agreed to support sites with this work.

The group also discussed the practical use of the tool and further training and development dates will be planned.

Having a platform for regular sharing/reporting

The Steering Group expressed that having the opportunity to meet, chat and share ideas, knowledge and offers of support is always extremely valuable. Steering groups only happen every 6-8 weeks, so the LWiC team agreed to set up a webpage for the group on the Knowledge Hub. This will be a platform for sites to share information around Neighbourhood Care in between meetings and will be open to all roles in all areas. We look forward to sharing more details around this in the future.

For any further information on any of the above, please feel free to contact one of the team:

hcis.livingwell@nhs.net

Neighbourhood Care Steering Group – 22 August Blog

Published on 16 October 2018 by Living Well In CommunitiesLeave a comment

On the 22^nd August the newly formed Steering Group met for the first time.

The steering group combines the Delivery Group (members of national organisations that support the Neighbourhood Care programme) with the Learning Network (project leads from the health and social care organisations that are testing the Neighbourhood Care principles (inspired by Buurtzorg). The steering group will meet every six to eight weeks and work in a Break Through Series Collaborative. By working in this way it’s hoped that there will be more opportunities for closer working, easier sharing and increased opportunities for support.

The 22^nd was an opportunity for all members of the Steering Group to share their current progress, challenges and support required. You can read more about the day’s activities in our flash report. Please feel free to share this with your teams.

Our next Steering Group meeting is on 3^rd October. Between now and then the LWiC team and National Partners will have met to discuss how best to plan the support that is required in order to assist local teams to develop their own local models of care to deliver the principles. This will be discussed further with the Steering Group on 3^rd October.

Scottish Borders HSCP, Aberdeen City HSCP, Argyll & Bute HSCP and NHS Highland have live case loads and so will continue to be supported by Buurtzorg Britain and Ireland (previously Public World) and a plan of training events has been developed from now until the end of the year that is tailored to their needs.

As well as the Steering Group, the Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) are supporting 10 individuals (including representation from HIS, Scottish Government, Care Inspectorate and Cornerstone) from the steering group in Action Learning Sets (ALS). ALS are a structured method of supportive coaching that helps the participants deliver outcomes that are important to them and the overall aim of the programme.

At the last steering group meeting test sites shared their current/planned measures that they will use to evidence their team’s improvements and outcomes. The LWiC team has collated this information and cross-mapped the measures to the original outcome framework/logic model. The next steering group meeting will provide an opportunity to discuss and define these measures in more detail, as well as discussing why sites have chosen these specific measures and whether there is an opportunity to develop a common set of measures between all sites.

We look forward to keeping you further informed after the next steering group meeting J

Highlights from the Neighbourhood Care Learning Network Event

Published on 30 May 2018 by Living Well In CommunitiesLeave a comment

On 11 May 2018 we held our latest neighbourhood care learning network event at the Care Inspectorate Offices in Hamilton. The session was well -attended by representatives from the neighbourhood care test sites, national organisations and third sector organisations. The purpose of this meeting was to discuss neighbourhood care and regulation, with a focus on questions raised by the test sites before the meeting. We also took the opportunity to discuss measurement ideas and learn what plans were already in place for local evaluation.

Sharing learning from the test sites

After introductions, staff from each test site provided an update on the neighbourhood care work in their area. There has been a lot of activity across the test sites with positives discussed on this way of working, offers of support and an eagerness from sites to arrange visits to learn from one another. Common challenges faced by the sites include those around culture and shifting perceptions, but the passion for the concept and success stories continue to drive this work forwards and motivate the teams.

Care Inspectorate – from enforcers to enablers

Catherine Agnew from the Care Inspectorate gave an informative presentation about the role of the Care Inspectorate in supporting services as enablers of innovation, rather than the traditional perception of enforcing regulation. There is acknowledgement that services for the public are evolving with the integration of health and social care. In support of this, the Care Inspectorate have developed regulatory sandboxes, where normal regulatory requirements are waived to support innovation which has the potential for public benefit.

Attendees discussed the new health and social care standards in Scotland and were pleased to note that the principles of the Buurtzorg model mirror these standards (Dignity and respect; Compassion; Be included; Responsive care and support; Wellbeing).

Evaluation

We facilitated a group discussion on evaluation and undertook an exercise to look at measures, how important these are and how easy they are to use. Representatives from the test sites rated examples and entered them into a prioritisation tool, which could help the teams to look at work priorities and measurements in their areas. They highlighted difficulties with measuring face-to-face contact time, although this is an important measure to show effectiveness of this model and the test site representatives acknowledged that this is a measure that is important to care givers: ‘more time with the person needing care’.

They are aware that while test sites will have different measures and there will be local variation, there is a need to have some standardisation for comparisons. Evaluation should be meaningful in a local context for individuals, their carers and staff. However, an element of evaluation will be required for national interest to look at areas such as cost saving, avoiding hospital admissions and reducing length of stays, etc.

The King’s Fund has recently published a paper on transformational change in health and care in response to the growing pressures and demands on the health and care system. The paper highlights four case studies that have been recognised as successful transformation initiatives, led by staff that directly provide care and service users. One of these successful initiatives is the Buurtzorg Nederland model.

Next steps

The test site representatives agreed to try a new approach to the learning network, with an option to move to the IHI model of a breakthrough series collaborative alongside action learning sets facilitated by the Scottish Social Services Council in the future. Once logistics have been further discussed, options will be presented to the group to take forward. Members of the group were happy to share their plans for evaluation with the Living Well in Communities (LWiC) team and there are steps to visit each site. Further information will be available soon.

Evaluating the application of the Buurtzorg principles in Scotland

Published on 16 January 20173 July 2017 by Living Well In CommunitiesLeave a comment

evaluation

by Ben Lukins, Programme Manager, Healthcare Improvement Scotland. Follow Ben on Twitter @blukins1.

At the start of December we held a workshop exploring the evaluation of neighbourhood care at a national and local level. The workshop was well-attended and included academics with evaluation backgrounds, staff from some of the Scottish test sites, representatives from Buurtzorg, staff from the Public Health Agency in Northern Ireland and individuals from our national partners.

The importance of reflecting the local context was recognised and it was acknowledged that there was a richness in the qualitative information, drawn from staff’s experiences. The group reflected that the evaluation was about looking at how the principles of Buurtzorg had been applied and not about evaluating the principles themselves.

Buurtzorg principles in Scotland

We spent time determining the principles that were being applied in Scotland and agreed on the following:

Putting the person at the centre of holistic care.
Building relationships with people to make informed decisions about their own care, which promotes wellbeing and independence with active involvement of family, neighbours and the wider community, where appropriate.
Everyone, including support functions, enabling person-centred care at the point of delivery.
Small self-organising, geographical-based teams.
Professional autonomy.

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