Health & Social Care North Lanarkshire staff have been thanked for their excellent work leading up to, and during, Operation FLOW’s firebreak.
The partnership’s staff played a huge role decompressing our whole system and helping reduce ward occupancy levels to 95%. A massive amount of work went in over the nine day Firebreak, with more than 160 supported discharges, increased clinical capacity for Hospital @ Home, rolling out flow bundles to all wards, and our treatment rooms taking minor injuries referrals to name a few.
During the firebreak, Hospital @ Home referrals more than doubled from a typical 49 to 99. The care home pathway was also effective with only one of 10 referrals requiring admission after being assessed by a GP through the out-of-hours service.
In total, our flow navigation centre directed 215 people away from emergency departments when taking in to account service redirection and self-care advice. Our Home Assessment Teams also provided enhanced seven day discharge support as well as supporting patients home from the front door as an alternative to admission.
Chief officer Ross McGuffie said: “It truly was an excellent whole system team effort and feedback has told us that many of our staff felt listened to and supported. It’s encouraging to hear that so many of us feel it’s been very worthwhile in further building relationships and better understanding different roles and responsibilities.
“We have been listening to feedback and identified a number of steps for the next phase of our improvement plan. These include standardising huddles and templates, refocusing our flow and discharge teams, further developing our community urgent care response.
“We couldn’t have achieved all that we did without the buy-in and excellent work of our staff over the last few weeks. I know it was a change in how we work for many of us, however our team rose to the occasion and delivered good, safe care to the people who use our services.
“Given that there are other stages of Operation FLOW to follow, I’m keen to hear further from our teams. All feedback is appreciated, so I’m urging colleagues to get in touch with their thoughts as we look to implement our optimal flow model, refresh our flow foundation bundle and continue our work with our healthcare planners during phase two of Operation FLOW.
“Sharing learning and adding to that your experience and expertise will be key to building on the progress we have just made and building further on that. Please share any observations, suggestions of questions with me or their line manager.”
