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What is your current role and how long have you been in it? We are Band 7 occupational therapists employed by Somerset NHS Foundation Trust (SFT) working in the North Sedgemoor Primary Care Network (PCN), a service established using the Additional Role Reimbursement Scheme funds. We are currently supporting the delivery of the Enhanced Health in Care Homes framework and we began in January 2022.
Describe a typical day… We support about 540 care home residents who are living with and managing several long-term health conditions, focusing on living well with these conditions and providing an enhanced review of their medical and wellbeing needs. We have a hybrid model of working that sees us based between home, GP surgeries and with the use of virtual tools.
What is the hardest thing about your role? Starting in a service that did not exist and ensuring you are not duplicating other commissioned services, as well as navigating the complexities of care home residents’ funding steams, and learning how private
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What is the best thing about your role? 1 The opportunity to identify health inequalities experienced by people living in care homes and respond to them 2 Supporting the development of Somerset’s care home workforce to better meet the needs of their residents 3 Referral route - using cuttingedge artificial intelligence system Brave to understand the needs of our local population. This is a new way to risk stratify and respond in a proactive and proportionate way. Key aims: anticipatory care, prevent admission and enable wellness conversations 4 Shared documentation: we are piloting the ‘Comprehensive Assessment Framework’ to provide an MDT ‘up to date’ care record. This is accessible by the Somerset Integrated Digital e-Record which is accessible to all professionals across all sectors 5 Using this technology is really exciting as it offers us reassurance that we are seeing the right people. Previously we
may have manually triaged or screened care home residents, with many of them not necessarily being identified to be seen at this stage as they may have been deemed as living well in a supported safe environment. We can now pro-actively support with occupational therapy access earlier, with the added benefit of good team working and innovative tools 6 Providing a clinical service and having opportunities to be part of local and regional service improvement projects 7 Being employed by Somerset FT provides us with a robust organisational governance framework and support in this emerging role, providing professional/peer supervision, carer progression and training 8 Our OT leadership has a vision for providing PCN OT services county wide, recognising our unique contribution to the PCN team. Having innovative OT leadership is powerful as we feel valued and invested in. You can follow Helen and Hattie on Twitter at the accounts below: @RostronHelen @OTHattie -magazine.co.uk
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