Health and care support over the bank holiday weekend
With the Easter Bank Holiday (Friday 29 March – Monday 1 April) approaching please do encourage your friends, family and colleagues to make sure their medicine cabinet is stocked with affordable over the counter medicines in the event of a minor illness.
The date to order prescription medicine in time for Good Friday has now passed but the guidance on how to order repeat prescriptions on the NHS website may be useful for the future.
You can also remind family and friends who may be visiting you for the long weekend to bring their own prescribed medication with them, so they don’t get caught out.
Pharmacies and NHS 111 online are still available to those with minor illnesses and conditions over the Easter weekend. They can refer you for more urgent healthcare support if required.
A list of local pharmacies open on Good Friday and Easter Monday is available on the ICB website.
New programme to help patients reverse their diabetes
We are launching a new weight management programme next month that aims to help patients put their Type 2 diabetes into remission launches in our area.
The ‘NHS Type 2 Diabetes Path to Remission Programme’, previously known as the NHS Low Calorie Diet, is a one year, evidence-based programme to support people with Type 2 diabetes to lose weight and better control their blood sugar levels through a meal-replacement diet and individual coaching. Find out more about the Path to Remission Programme.
It’s an exciting new step and one which helps us to support people to take control of their health.
New ICS website to launch in April
We are launching a new website for our integrated health and care system on 24 April, which will be an improved and simplified source of health and care information for people living and working in Hertfordshire and west Essex.
The new ICS website will have a new address https://hertsandwestessex.ics.nhs.uk/ and will replace our current separate ICB and ICS websites.
Having one over-arching site for the Integrated Care System, with a clearly identified section for the ICB, will make it easier for members of the public, stakeholders and staff to find the information they need and navigate what is often a complex health and care landscape.
The new website will reflect work to strengthen our health and care partnerships and will include individual pages for each district and borough council area within Herts and west Essex.
Please use our new website address in any information featuring the ICS or ICB from 24 April onwards. If you have printed or online materials which feature our existing website details, please update these with our new address when possible.
As a reminder, our existing addresses are https://hertsandwestessex.icb.nhs.uk/ and https://hertsandwestessexics.org.uk/
We will have some temporary re-directs in place which will automatically take users to the new site after 24 April, so if you have existing leaflets that feature our current website addresses, links should continue to work.
If you have any questions about the new website please email the ICB’s Communications and Engagement team.
Hertfordshire and west Essex Shared Care Record shortlisted for national award
We’re pleased to share that the Hertfordshire and West Essex Shared Care Record has been named a finalist in the HSJ (Health Service Journal) Digital Awards.
As you may know, Shared Care Record allows frontline health and care staff to view a secure summary of information from the different services involved in an individual’s care. It’s a real collaborative effort, delivered in partnership across the Integrated Care System.
The system empowers professionals to work together in a more joined-up way with real-time access to information. For example, medical staff treating a patient in A&E can review their recent treatment history and find out what social care that person usually receives at home, so that the right support can be arranged before discharge.
The entry stood out amongst others entered for the awards because it successfully connected information from health and care organisations spanning 10 health and care systems in just 18 months – with the potential to benefit millions of patients. Key to achieving this has been an existing approach called ‘My Care Record’, through which health and social care organisations in the East of England are working together to ensure that information is joined up to improve care.
How Artificial Intelligence (AI) can help us to help our patients
Last week HCT ran an innovative session on Big Data and AI Summit. The purpose of the event was to support the design of a proactive care service that will support the ICB’s objective to provide more care in the community and prevent avoidable hospital admissions. As well as aiming to provide the best patient care and experience, it will also help reduce the demand pressures, particularly on acute system partners.
The summit brought together clinical and operational colleagues from across the system, including HCT, commissioners, acute trusts, local authorities primary care and Hertfordshire University. Colleagues from technology companies and the voluntary, community, faith and social enterprise sector also joined the event.
The summit looked at how to use big data to proactively identify, in real time, patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, heart failure and frailty. These are patients who will benefit most from proactive case management, so we can intervene earlier and provide an effective and efficient set of services to support people in their homes.
The session also explored how a machine-learning model can help to identify patients one to nine days before a potential crisis or hospital admission, and intervene appropriately and proactively to support them, reducing the need for them to be admitted to hospital.
Advice at your fingertips on childhood illness
Knowing where to get the right advice, when you need it, can make a huge difference when young families are poorly.
To help parents and carers, clinical leaders of local health and care services have created a website, Healthier Together, which offers useful information and trusted advice on a range of common childhood illnesses all in one place.
This spring, we want to continue to spread the word about the website, which has up to date information and advice on a number of topics including:
- managing asthma
- mental health and wellbeing support
- sickness bugs and when to keep your child at home
- vaccinations including measles.
The site advises on the common symptoms of a range of conditions, what steps you should take to treat them at home and when to think about seeking further help. Please help us by sharing this website with your networks.
Incident at The Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow
Earlier this month, a buildings issue meant that an important treatment area had to be temporarily taken out of use at Princess Alexandra Hospital (PAH). We would like to thank everyone at PAH who was involved in managing a difficult situation successfully, and in a way that prioritised patient safety and the smooth-running of hospital systems and procedures. Support from system colleagues at the time helped to show the positive steps we have made in working collaboratively.
We want to note the significant improvements in A&E four-hour wait times for PAH in the last two months. In February, nearly 11% more patients were seen within four hours than in December. This is the shortest A&E average waiting times since summer 2022. Similarly, there has been an improvement in the time taken to hand patients over from the care of ambulance service staff to the care of A&E staff. In a pressured system, these achievements are all the more important.
Last week we also had intense pressures at two of our other provider organisations and experienced increased levels of demand for care. Despite this we worked together across Hertfordshire and west Essex to ensure that we continued to deliver the sustained improvements in performance we have seen in recent weeks. This is due to changes made together as a system – and the work of so many to implement them. We are keen that we take lessons from this and apply them to the many other areas in which we are refining our system approach to delivering high quality health and social care services.
National campaign to address falling rates of childhood vaccinations
We would value your support in encouraging your communities to make sure children are up to date with their vaccinations.
With cases of measles and whooping cough rising across the country, it’s so important to ensure children are protected from these serious illnesses.
The NHS has launched a national campaign to increase uptake of these free childhood immunisations among youngsters aged up to five years old, which could prevent around 5,000 deaths a year and more than 100,000 hospital admissions in England alone.
It’s never too late for parents and guardians to contact their GP to check if their children can catch up. They can visit the dedicated childhood vaccinations page on the NHS website to find out more information. They can also look out for messages on our social media channels and through our fortnightly newsletter ICB Update.
Steve Palmer, Healthwatch Hertfordshire
In February we received the sad news that Steve Palmer, former Chair of Healthwatch Hertfordshire, died suddenly.
You may have known that Steve, who was in his role between 2017 and 2023, had been unwell but was making good progress with his recovery, so this news came as a shock to those who knew him.
Before becoming Chair, Steve was previously Healthwatch Hertfordshire’s Treasurer. Steve worked in social housing for many years as a finance director and managing director, and subsequently worked with tenants and others looking at the future of local authority housing. Steve also served as a councillor in Watford.
Our thoughts go to his friends, family and colleagues at this time.