Our collaborative ways of working and committed, continuous improvement culture has won praise from representatives of the Delivery Unit of the Office of No.10 following a recent field visit.
The County Durham Care Partnership hosted the visit to discuss our joint working arrangements, especially in relation to integrated discharge arrangements, as a best practice case example and to influence future work nationally.
The Deputy Director and Discharge Lead from the Health and Social Care Delivery Unit, for the Office on No.10 were given an overview by colleagues from across the Partnership of County Durham’s improvement journey in hospital discharge. This included how new care delivery models, such as the brokerage relationship with CHS, have been adopted to improve performance across the system.
Our visitors said that they found it really helpful to see how all the partners had made the system work together so collaboratively. They told us that they were particularly struck by the continuous improvement culture and how invested everyone was in getting the system working even better, and thought it was great to see an approach to domiciliary care, which can be a trickier part of the system, bearing fruit.
Michael Laing, director of Integrated Community Services said of the visit:
“With our partners Care Home Selection (CHS) we discussed with the Delivery Unit how we help the most complex patients to be discharged safely. We also identified those areas where we can do better.
“We were asked about ‘the secret sauce’ that made Durham stand out. Although we couldn’t name it, we could list the ingredients as strong relationships, good daily communication, understanding of people’s needs, partnerships across the sectors, stability in the provider market, supporting each other during surges in demand and a working principle of ‘no surprises’.
“Could we do more? Of course we could. However, it is good to be reminded by people outside of the Partnership that we are working well together and going in the right direction.”
The meeting was facilitated by Care Home Selection (CHS) who provide a care home hospital discharge brokerage service in County Durham and had been asked by No.10 to identify a system where integrated working in this field was highly developed. We have strong working relationships in place with CHS who described our systems as progressive and best in class, prompting the Delivery Unit to ask to come and see for themselves.
Potential opportunities where local learning in County Durham could be scaled up nationwide with government support were also considered. We’ll keep you informed of further developments.
