An ambitious programme has been launched by health and care partners in Gloucestershire to transform urgent and emergency care services.

The “Working as One” programme aims to better join up and co-ordinate health and care for people and support them to stay healthy, recover quickly following an illness, and ensure that care and treatment is received in the most appropriate place.

Central to the programme are five core work areas summarised below:

  • Prevention – To proactively support people in the community to prevent or reduce the need or urgent care.
  • Community Urgent Response & Front Door – To reduce avoidable acute hospital attendances and stays by ensuring people receive the right support, from the right service, at the right time.
  • Hospital Flow and Decision Making – To ensure people benefit from timely referrals, tests, treatment, and decision making when in hospital and are supported to leave hospital in a timely way and to the right place.
  • Intermediate Care/Reablement – To improve the availability, flow and outcomes of rehabilitative care in the community.
  • Access To Care Packages – To ensure availability of long-term care packages for those who require them and supporting options for family or friends providing unpaid care to the person in need.

Each workstream has dedicated leadership from across the integrated care system. There is a shared vision of transforming the way care is delivered. Several trials are currently taking place to test new ways of working and improve efficiency.

Gloucestershire Hospital NHS Foundation Trust’s, Hospital Flow Team is trialling a new model on five of its wards which has seen improved patient care and efficiency on the wards. Feedback from staff and patients has been positive, with tangible improvements in e efficiency of ward rounds. On average, these rounds are now shorter, allowing staff more time to focus on patient care and improvement initiatives. The programme team is now focusing on how this can be sustained and rolled out across the Trust.

You can read more about this trial and the other workstreams in the monthly bulletins on the Working as One programme webpage.