Welcome

Welcome to the third newsletter from Wessex AHSN.

Our first annual report has recently been submitted to NHS England, and captures our journey over the last year bringing benefits to patients and the health economy. We have moved from concept to become a licensed, member led organisation making a difference in Wessex, and we are proud of the progress being delivered.

You can download a copy from our website at www.wessexahsn.org/ahsn-archive/annual-report

At the NHS Confederation conference, the new NHS England chief executive, Simon Stevens, acknowledged the “enormous challenges” faced by the health service but told delegates that ‘…people now want to get on with developing solutions’. He believes that the NHS should be “….rigorously pro science, pro research and pro the rapid spread of useful improvement – and that I think is where AHSNs have such an important role.”

I look forward to sharing more developments with you in this newsletter and, as ever, welcome your feedback.

Martin Stephens, CEO

Summer 2014Wessex Academic Health Science Network

WESSEx INNOvAtION rESOurCES ANd EvENtS

In this issue:• dementia Friends • Patient Safety Collaborative• Accelerator Fund 2014/15• Priority Areas Showcase: Alcohol• Portsmouth City Council commended for

alcohol work• Priority Areas Showcase: Nutrition• transition to adult care: ready Steady Go• Wessex AHSN Centre for Implementation

Science• Sharing Success: Salisbury NHS trust

innovation celebrates 1st anniversary• Event & Information updates

Dementia Friendsthe dementia Friends initiative has been rolled out across England, supporting dementia friendly shops, hairdressers, newsagents, bus services, towns, villages and even counties. the various formats share a common intent – to welcome people with dementia, help them to remain connected with their community and to provide support if they are struggling with the service or situation.

Within North Hampshire dr Nicola decker, GP at Oakley and Overton surgery reviewed the service offered to patients. She applied for funding from the Wessex AHSN to improve the service for people with dementia and their carers, and to put in place reasonable adjustments to make the surgery dementia friendly. dr decker completed this work in April 2014 and has created an information pack for other surgeries keen to implement similar best practice.

Similar adjustments have been made in GP surgeries in Poole, ryde and south Wiltshire, and links are being made with other dementia friendly initiatives across Wessex. Evaluation is underway to assess their impact on patients, carers, and on demand for primary and secondary care services. there may be differences between the methodologies which can also produce learning, and we are keen to determine how acute care can become more dementia friendly.

Wessex AHSN is keen to roll this out and support other successful dementia friendly initiatives across the region. For further information please contact Katherine Barbour, Senior Project Manager, on 07990 002106 or at Katherine.barbour@wessexahsn.net.

Patient Safety CollaborativeWessex AHSN has been appointed by NHS England to lead on the regional Patient Safety Collaborative. the national launch is planned for 14th July 2014; we will feature more information in the next newsletter.

Accelerator Fund 2014/15the 2014/15 round of Accelerator Funding will be launched in July to accelerate innovation and wealth creation across Wessex. We plan to fund innovations (including those already in existence) that can demonstrate further improvement and accelerate successful best practice.

Summary Business Case Proposal documents will be launched soon to member organisations. the progress of successful projects will be monitored via quarterly reviews. Project completion is expected by 30th September 2015. Please contact dave Meehan, director of Partnerships and deputy CEO, with any queries: dave.meehan@wessexahsn.net or on 023 8202 0849.

NutritionNutrition has been identified by Wessex AHSN as one of its key areas of focus with the aim to deliver a long term programme to improve health across our local population. Within the region there are some of the uKs leading nutritional experts giving us the capacity and capability to become national leaders in improving nutritional care by coordinating our work through the Wessex AHSN. Sue Hawkins, who is leading on one of our nutrition projects, was recently announced as one of the top 50 people influencing the development of a new care system, in the Local Government Chronicle and Health Service Journal Care Integration 50 list.

Malnourished people are known to experience increased ill health and delayed recovery.

It is estimated that more than 3m people in the uK are malnourished or at risk of malnourishment, with the incidence and implications being greater in the elderly population.

NICE have identified malnutrition as the 6th largest source of potential NHS savings, with the opportunity to save the NHS £13billion per year through early identification and intervention. there is evidence of variation in the levels of provision of nutritional care across Wessex, although the details of this are not known.

to date, we’ve worked with the British Association for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (BAPEN) to deliver a scoping document for the Nutrition Programme, incorporating the latest research to spread best practice across acute and primary care and lead the national agenda on nutrition.

the programme is jointly supporting a pan-dorset pilot study in Purbeck and rolling out to six GP practices with co-funding from the Malnutrition taskforce.

the Nutrition Programme will focus on five main elements:

• develop capability• Establish a baseline• Quality Improvement Programme• Support and spread• Community of Practice.

the project outline below provides further detail.

Priority Areas Showcase: Alcohol Priority Areas Showcase: Nutrition Reducing Harm from AlcoholAlcohol consumption accounts for around 10% of the uK’s burden of disease, with alcohol dependence significantly underdiagnosed and under-treated. Mortality from alcohol in Wessex is below the national average yet significantly above this level in our region’s cities. Wessex AHSN is working to understand the impact of alcohol in our communities, and progide a platform to measure changes. the programme benefits from a wide range of engagement from national and regional partners.

A pilot campaign to ‘Know Your Own Number’ is underway in Southampton and two projects to develop alcohol care pathways are being defined. Wessex AHSN’s Accelerator Fund is supporting two innovations, drink Coach and Alcostick.

drink Coach is a smartphone and iPad application aimed at helping increasing risk and higher risk drinkers to become aware of their habits and reducing their alcohol intake.

Alcostick is a non-invasive blood alcohol monitor which enables patients’ blood alcohol levels on admission or in an outpatient setting to be measured without the need for venesection and laboratory testing.

We want to reduce harm from alcohol by:

• Modelling different approaches to behaviour change and the impact on service delivery costs

• reducing alcohol related admissions to hospital

• Helping people to recover from episodes of ill health or injury

• Increasing the early identification of alcohol related health problems

• decreasing the number of adults with alcohol related health problems

• Increasing awareness of the importance of eating well and the consequences of malnutrition

• Increasing the number of people being regularly screened for alcohol related health problems

Increasing patients’ quality of life.Project Manager Cathy rule is leading on this area for Wessex AHSN, with dr Julia Sinclair our clinical lead. Contact Cathy at cathy.rule@wessexahsn.net or on 0799 000 2110.

2 www.wessexahsn.org 3Wessex Academic Health Science Network Limited is a company limited by guarantee. Company registered in England and Wales No 8950877

Portsmouth City Council commended for alcohol work

Portsmouth City Council (PCC) was highly commended in the finals of the Municipal Journal Awards 2014 in the delivering Better Outcomes category, held on 19 June. the Municipal Journal is the management journal for local authority business, and has recognised the innovative work done to tackle alcohol related harm in the city to:

• Improve and increase the uptake of alcohol treatment

• Improve access for people in Queen Alexandra Hospital by developing a specific alcohol nurse team to work with those attending hospital due to their drinking

• Support the rehabilitation of offenders with alcohol issues through work in the custody suites

• target marketing to encourage older men to reduce their drinking through the Save dave Campaign

• Improve care and support in the night time economy through the Safe Space project and other licensing initiatives.

Community Health Practitioner JohnCross, said: “We are delighted tohave won this award. It means a lotto the team to have our workrecognised and hopefully it helps tospread the message that alcoholharm can be reduced with the rightprojects in place.”

We want to improve nutritional care by:

• Increasing the early identification of malnutrition / risk of malnutrition

• decreasing the number of malnourished adults

• Increasing the number of elderly people with a healthy weight

• Increasing awareness of the importance of eating well and the consequences of malnutrition

• Increasing the number of people being regularly screened for malnutrition

• Increasing the number of people having an individualised nutritional care plan

• Increasing quality of life

• decreasing the poor health / clinical consequences caused by malnutrition, and associated visits to the emergency department

• decreasing admissions and length of stay in hospitals and care homes due to malnutrition.

Further progress updates for each of our Priority Areas are available on our website at https://wessexahsn.org/our-services/our-priority-areas/. Kathy Wallis is Wessex AHSN’s Senior Project Manager for the nutrition programme. Contact Kathy at kathy.wallis@wessexahsn.net or on 0799 000 2108.

Develop

capability

Establish a Baseline

Support and spread

Community of Practice

Develop tools to support nutrition projects (Malnutrition and other priority areas). Use of standard and tested

tools will reduce duplicate work by different organisations, and promote the collection of common

data

Limited data exists outlining current practice across all care settings in Wessex. This workstream aims to understand existing data, identify data needs, and

conduct survey to measure the baseline (and subsequent improvements)

Support to nutritional projects (e.g. Pan-Dorset Nutrition project; South Wiltshire Care Home Audit, Bournemouth

Training Programme) through the spread of good practice, development and application of tool. Develop a catalogue of new and existing projects and good practice

The Community of Practice will support the communications and sharing of information between all

interested parties (professional care workers and the public)

Quality Improvementprogramme

Scope and implement a quality improvement programme for good nutritional care across all care settings. Initially

focus on a defined cross- setting geography

Outcome Measurement ToolBaseline SurveyIdentify other tools

Review available data

Identify data needsConduct survey /

interviewsScope

Launch

Baseline

Improvement Plans

Support existing and new projectsTrial and apply tools

Share and spread good practiceDevelop electronic

forumSet up Community of Practice

Community Event

Wes

sex

Wes

sex /

H

amps

hire

Ham

pshi

reW

esse

xW

esse

xProgramme Update: Mental HealthMental health forms the single largest spend of the NHS budget, with patients with mental health problems often relying on a number of different services for access and support which means that innovation and productivity in mental health services could have a significant impact on other services.

Project Manager Alison Griffiths will be working closely with the Wessex Strategic Clinical Network to determine local priority needs and identify models of best practice for spread. Contact Alison at alison.griffiths@wessexahsn.net or on 0799 000 2113.

Salisbury NHS Trust innovation celebrates first anniversaryMy trusty Little Sunflower Cream, one of a range of innovative products from Salisbury NHS Ft and Hampshire Cosmetics, recently celebrated 12 months of operation with a birthday party at Salisbury’s White Hart Hotel.

developed from an established in-house formulation, the commercialised product has generated over £100k turnover in its first year of sale with all profits returned to patient care. We are supporting the trust in their outreach to global markets as they increase the product range in 2014.

Wessex AHSN Centre for Implementation Science

Event & Information Updates Transition to AdultCare: Ready Steady Go

Operational Frameworkthe work programme for the CIS is driven by the business needs of the Wessex AHSN and itspartners, and is underpinned by three main areas of focus:

4 www.wessexahsn.org

the Wessex AHSN Centre for Implementation Science (CIS) is hosted at the university of Southampton’s Faculty of Health Sciences. the Centre is commissioned by the AHSN to integrate resources from the universities of Bournemouth, Portsmouth, Solent and Winchester, and works with all our Wessex partners to identify, support and evaluate the implementation of service improvement programmes.

the Centre is headed by director Caroline Powell. Caroline’s career spans medical research, health services audit and improvement and senior management roles in the public and third sector. Caroline is joined by research fellow Sydney Anstee, with Bradley Keogh and Hazel Orriss providing analytical expertise and programme support. the programme will be supported by a scientific advisory board which will bring in expertise from a wider network to address key AHSN challenges.

Get in touch Wessex AHSNTel: 023 8202 0840Email: enquiries@wessexahsn.org.uk

Centre for Implementation ScienceTel: 023 8059 7845

Industry Summit March 2014Our first industry summit was attended by 80 delegates from small to medium enterprises and large corporations. We explored with industry leaders how together we could:

• Build a local network to support business growth in health/life sciences

• understand the needs of the NHS, using the outcomes of our Wessex Innovation NHS Challenge Survey to stimulate discussion

• Improve access to partnerships for joint working with the NHS and research

• Improve local health services and outcomes for patients.

Steve Fairman, director of Business, Improvement and research for NHS England, set the national picture for AHSNs, and Sue Clarke, Managing director of Morgan Innovation & technology gave an industry perspective.

transition is the process of preparing, planning and moving from children’s to adult services. to support young patients through transition, university Hospitals Southampton Ft have developed the ready Steady Go programme. read more at http://tinyurl.com/p83cdot

Using Ready Steady Go in your hospitalIf you would like to use the ready Steady Go transition programme in your hospital, please contact dr Arvind Nagra, consultant paediatric nephrologist and clinical lead for transitional care at arvind.nagra@uhs.nhs.uk

the Wealth & Enterprise team have subsequently built on the knowledge and networking from the event to establish a local network to support business growth and innovation in the health life sciences sector. to better understand your commercial needs and discuss how Wessex AHSN could potentially support and work with your organisation, we are offering introductory 1 hour meetings. Please contact emma.barker-knott@wessexahsn.net or on 023 8202 0840 to arrange a mutually convenient time.

Formulary Adherence Checklist NICE TAsthe formulary Adherence Checklist for NICE tAs is a national initiative used by all trusts to monitor their compliance with NICE tA recommendations for medicines. the checklist , helpful user and How to update documents Guides together with the Forward planner for NICE tAs can be found on our website www.wessexahsn.org within the AHSN News and Information section.