England’s most senior nurse Jane Cummings recently visited Sirona’s services in Bath and North East Somerset to see how health and social care services work together in the community.
Jane, who is the Chief Nursing Officer for England and the professional lead for nurses and midwives in England, oversees quality improvements in patient safety and patient experience.
She spent a day meeting with staff and accompanying Lorraine Facey, one of Sirona’s Community Matrons on a visit to local resident Joyce Rounsevell, 74, who has been receiving care at her city home.
Sirona care & health is a not-for-profit social enterprise providing NHS and local authority funded community health and adult social care in B&NES and South Gloucestershire.
Lorraine, who is based in Bath, said: “I was delighted to show Jane the benefits of working in a social enterprise and working together to improve the quality of life for people living with long term conditions.”
“As part of her day with us, she accompanied me on a visit to meet Joyce, who for the last three months has been receiving care at home from integrated health and social care services.
“This includes social services, a Community matron service and a team who specialise in providing a ‘hospital at home’ service for people with chronic bronchitis and/or emphysema also known as Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD).
“Joyce’s case is just one example of how health and social care work together to avoid admission to hospital for individuals and manage long term conditions.”
As part of the visit, Lorraine was also able to demonstrate the technology that she uses in the home and show the advantages that this brings which includes increasing the time she can spend with a patient and the reduction in administration time.
Lorraine said: “Using assistive technology in people’s homes ensures that when I carry out tests , the results can be available immediately to the patient’s GP in the Surgery.”
Jane added: “I enjoyed meeting the multi-disciplinary team which involved Lorraine; what was really powerful was watching the team working together to meet the needs of patients.
“The team included very experienced nurses with other allied health professionals, GPS and Social Care; the combination of that experience in one place meant they were able to respond to the needs of very complex patients. I would like to see more of it across the country.”
