News

We are delighted to announce that the Trust’s Ageing Well Team have been shortlisted at this year’s Nursing Times Awards.

With life expectancy increasing, so has the number of older people with complex health and care needs. These patients are cared for in nearly all health and social care settings.

A growing older population is driving greater demand for health and care services. But there are also opportunities to improve health in later life. There is also a chance to develop more appropriate services that may reduce demand for more expensive care.

The Trust’s Ageing Well Education and Coaching Programme aims to meet the ever-changing demands in community healthcare. This includes training staff to give them the knowledge and confidence to assess patients, who may be frail or have more complex conditions.

As an accelerator site for the national Ageing Well Programme the investment has allowed them to provide additional, enhanced skills to the community. They are also keen to enhance the existing workforce and their clinical knowledge.

The work of the programme has now been recognised nationally after it was shortlisted in the Care of Older People category. The awards take place in London in October.

“The programme is trying to meet the changing needs in community healthcare. It has changed hugely over the last 20 years. Patients are more complex. If you are over 65 you are more likely to have 3 long-term conditions than 1.

“Most of the clinical workforce have not had the opportunity to develop their knowledge to meet the changing complexity of the patients they are responding to. The intention of the programme is to increase the confidence and skills of existing clinicians to meet the needs of patients in health crisis. Or with multiple long-term conditions, alongside varying health professionals.

“We did not want it to be just for registered nurses. We wanted it to be across the board for all our clinical workers. The joy of the Ageing Well Programme is that we have a collaborative learning environment with both registered and unregistered nurses. This is alongside occupational therapists, dieticians, and podiatrists. It is also not just for the general workforce. We have also had students who work in mental health. It is a lovely model of multi-disciplinary working and mutual learning.

“We are valuing education and investing in the ability to release our staff for training. This award nomination recognises the hard work which has gone into the design and delivery of the programme. It also commends our team of clinical facilitators and programme manager. It also recognises the investment of all the students who have taken part in this training.

“As far as we are aware nobody else in the country is doing something this robust. What we are also trying to do is take the pressure off the teams by not having everybody out of their clinical area for too long. There are 5 face to face taught days. The real learning takes place in the students’ work environment with individual coaching from the clinical facilitators.

“Some of the other candidates that are in the shortlist are really impressive. It will be good to talk to them and learn from each other. It will be a really good network opportunity.” Marie Prior, Clinical Lead for Frailty and Ageing Well

The team is made up of 3 clinical facilitators, which consists of a physiotherapist, with experience in rehabilitation and reablement, a nurse with a background in long-term conditions, and a mental health practitioner.

Marie adds: “This coaching model which reflects our multi-disciplinary approach is supported by Sue Blake. She is our programme manager and has invested time and commitment in enabling us to set up the programme and in enabling me to design it.

“We were really fortunate to be an accelerator site for the national Ageing Well Programme. This gave us investment to put in additional, enhanced skills to the community. But what we were really eager to do was also enhance the existing workforce and their clinical knowledge.

“The Ageing Well Programme with educational coaching is to support our existing workforce and give them greater confidence. It will also give them better knowledge to manage the increasing complexity of people we are looking after.”

The Care of Older People award seeks to highlight the excellent care being provided by nursing staff for older patients. It also aims to shine a light on innovation in an area that is far too often ignored.

“I think one of the major priorities in the health and social care sector now is integration. The integrated place-based approach is really important, but we are also focusing on a skills-led approach. That is really about equipping staff with those skills to enable them to work with versatility and flexibility.

“The journey began before COVID when we started doing quite a detailed skills analysis to look at where the gaps were in clinicians’ knowledge and skills. And also, in terms of their confidence because obviously that is key, particularly when you have staff working in community settings where they are often working in a solitary environment. Confidence is really important to being able to use the skills and knowledge they have.

“We were really grateful to Lucy Clement, Associate Director of Community and Nursing, for encouraging us to apply. One of our main aims in applying was to be able to increase awareness of this other programme which is highly transferable.

“It can be quite easily picked up by a range of organisations, including health and social care, voluntary and community sectors. Its potential is huge, and we wanted to have the opportunity to share that on a national programme.” Sue Blake, Programme Support Manager