Living our values

Community Garden opens at Broadgreen

Highfield Community Garden was formally opened in April by LUHFT Chair Sue Musson and Andrew Brown, the Executive Director of the Veolia Environmental Trust who funded the garden project.

The space was created to provide an area for patients and staff to relax or exercise on the outdoor gym area. The occasion was marked by the planting of a final shrub in the garden.

In attendance where The Conversation Volunteers who completed all the work in the garden project, they worked onsite for just over a year and the team is made up of volunteers from all different walks of life.

There was also representation from Avrenim staff who were a key part of the project and also donated supplies and time to help finish the garden. Domestic waste contractors also helped

officially open the garden by donating and planting a rowan tree.

The garden has been named Highfield Community Garden to recognise the history of the site. Broadgreen was initially home to Highfield Infirmary which was established in 1903 and was an epilepsy home, before becoming a treatment centre for tuberculosis under the name Highfield Sanatorium.

IBD Nurse awarded Employee of the Month

Congratulations to our Employee of the Month Lisa Critchley, IBD Nurse at the Royal.

Lisa was presented her award by LUHFT Chair, Sue Musson, after being nominated by Consultant Gastroenterologist, Dr Philip Smith.

Dr Smith said: “Lisa has been awarded a very prestigious Crohn’s and Colitis UK Nurse Specialist Programme Award, one of only a handful in the UK and Northern Ireland given out. To make her story even more powerful, she has Crohn’s Disease herself and has been a key player in supporting me set up the North West’s only Gastroenterology Transition Clinic.”

Funding to develop heart failure services

Our Heart Failure Team, led by Dr Rajiv Sankaranarayanan, has been awarded a £237,000 grant to develop new out-of-hospital heart failure services, allowing more people to be cared for in the community.

In an aim to improve access and outcomes for people with heart failure, NHSX provided the Digital Health Partnership Award funding for a first End-to-end Digital Heart Failure Patient Pathway.

This service is being developed in partnership with Mersey Care, Docobo, Graphnet Health, Liverpool CCG, Innovation Agency and Liverpool Centre for Cardiovascular Science (University of Liverpool).

The current services will be scaled up and enhanced so more patients can be cared for in the community.

The key areas of the new Digital Heart Failure Patient Pathway are:

• Prevention – by looking at the health of our local community, and through better treatment for patients with higher risk factors, we can identify and prevent the worsening of heart failure which can result in hospitalisation

• Early supported discharge – supporting patients who have been discharged through a ‘virtual heart failure ward’ which is available seven days a week – only the second such service in the country. This is carried out with the use of Telehealth remote home monitoring, home intravenous diuretics, PIFU personalised care model, long-term condition monitoring and patient self-care and self-management

• Digital Discharge Plan – A digital discharge plan would allow shared access to patient and health care providers.