The Advancing Quality Alliance (AQuA) is
pleased to announce that three of our Liverpool members have been selected for
The Health Foundation’s £1.5 million Innovating for Improvement programme.
Alder Hey Children’s Hospital NHS Foundation
Trust, NHS Liverpool Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), and the Royal
Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust were among the 21 projects
selected across the UK to receive the funding.
The Innovating for Improvement
programme will run for 15 months. Each of the three projects in Liverpool will
receive up to £75,000 of funding to support delivery, as well as the evaluation
of how the innovation improves the quality of health care.
The three Liverpool-based projects set
to benefit from the funding will each focus on improving a different area of
health care for patients with respiratory health needs in the city.
NHS Liverpool Clinical Commissioning
Group (CCG) will use this funding to build on the success of Liverpool’s Advice
on Prescription in Primary Care project, which was set up in partnership with
Liverpool’s Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) to help alleviate poverty, hardship
and other common social risk factors that negatively impact on a person’s
health. The project will identify new care pathways that would benefit from the
scheme, and test it in respiratory services.
Dr Janet Bliss, Clinical Director for
Community Services at NHS Liverpool CCG said:
“We are delighted with the news of
these three Innovating for Improvement funding awards, each of which will be
used to help develop cutting-edge health projects that will directly benefit
local patients.
“The Advice on Prescription Project is
a ground-breaking scheme which enables all Liverpool GP’s to refer their
patients to CAB advisors for help on a range of social issues such as housing,
homelessness, job loss and debt.
“Being part of the programme will
enable us to continue to build on the successful work already being undertaken
through this scheme, with the aim of reducing many of the social risk factors
that can negatively impact on people’s health and wellbeing.”
The Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen
University Hospitals NHS Trust will use funding from the Health Foundation to
improve how heroin smokers access chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)
community services across Liverpool and help reduce the time they
need to spend in hospital.
A large number of heroin users in
Merseyside are at risk of developing and dying from COPD, a lung disease
associated with smoking that causes symptoms such as cough and breathlessness.
The innovative project,
which is being led by consultant respiratory physician Dr Hassan Burhan, is
engaging with patients by working in partnership with drug services, NHS
Liverpool CCG, and 2Bio
Ltd’s Impact Science Team who provide innovation services to the Trust and
have supported the development of this project.
Dr Hassan Burhan,
Consultant Respiratory Physician,
Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospital NHS Trust said:
"Heroin users often
don’t engage with community services, which can lead to late diagnosis of COPD
and missed opportunities to slow how the disease progresses. Up to one in two
heroin smokers have COPD, and one in eight admissions with exacerbations of
COPD to our Trust are in patients with a history of heroin smoking.
“We are really pleased to
have secured this award and look forward to implementing our ideas to improve
COPD management and outcomes in this hard to reach group of patients.”
Alder Hey Children's Hospital NHS
Foundation Trust will use the funding to help evaluate the effectiveness of
their SCORE programme, a new healthcare model that empowers children with
asthma to understand their condition, self-manage it and participate in
activities. The model involves an initial consultation to set goals and
optimise treatments, a peer-group educational intervention, and two blocks of
activity.
Dr Ian Sinha,
Consultant Respiratory Paediatrician at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital said:
"We are delighted to have
received this funding award for this new approach to asthma treatment, which is
centred around children and communities. We hope to demonstrate that it is both
clinically effective and cost-effective through the programme, and to be able
to share this learning more widely.
“More than ever we need to be thinking
creatively about new ways of working in health, and each of these innovative
projects highlights that Liverpool is a forward thinking city with regards to
new models of care.”
Sarah Henderson, Associate Director
from the Health Foundation said:
“We are delighted to be supporting
three fantastic projects in Liverpool to enhance care for patients in the local
area, with a focus on improving respiratory services. 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 health care, with the intention of these
being widely adopted across the UK.”
To find out more
about the Innovating for Improvement programme, go to: http://www.health.org.uk/programmes/innovating-improvement
