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‘Integration Matters’ - 1 - December 2017

‘Integration Matters’ December 2017

Keeping you informed about Health and Social Care Integration in Angus

Vicky Irons, Chief Officer

Vicky Irons, Chief Officer

Welcome to the December edition of Integration Matters.

As we move in to the full grip of Winter, I am always conscious

of our working lives and the pressures that the season brings.

It’s a time when people seem to need us most.

My thoughts during this particularly cold and icy period are drawn to all of us who spend our

working lives driving in difficult conditions, and supporting the care needs of people across

Angus. Some may know that earlier this month, I had my own unscheduled stop in a ditch as a

result of a car accident on ice. It reiterates the need to take care, slow down, and prepare for

travelling in dark and difficult conditions.

We launched another set of public conversations recently about the developing Angus Care

Model. It was great to see the engagement from staff and the public in the conversations

about the future configuration of services in Angus.

Next year will be an important year or us all and both challenging and exciting to see the

potential emerge from the current plans under development.

We should therefore take time to prepare ourselves for working through winter, and the year

ahead. Find time to look after yourself and members of your team, and enjoy the season.

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a prosperous 2018.


CONTENTS

Welcome from Vicky Irons, Chief Officer page 1

News from the Localities

North East page 3

North West page 3

South East page 4

South West page 4

Developing the Angus Care Model page 5

Background to … Men Only Cooking in the North page 6

East Locality

Update from Scottish Ambulance Service page 7

Visit to Letham Health & Wellbeing Centre page 8

Wellbeing support from ANGUSalive page 9

Congratulations! page 10

Help to Live at Home – Delivering Social Care in Angus page 11

World COPD Day – 15 November page 13

Telemedicine Update page 14

Truecall

Digital Awareness Week incl. Florence and ‘Video Active’

Six things you need to know about the Carer’s Act page 15

Christmas Jumper Day at St. Margaret’s page 16


Marc Jacobs, Chair, North East Locality Improvement Group

James Shaw, Chair, North West Locality Improvement Group

News from the North East Locality

LOCALITY IMPROVEMENT GROUP UPDATE

The latest Locality Improvement Group meeting was held on 5 December 2017, at which a good range of

services was represented.

A presentation was given by David McKenzie, Scottish Fire and Rescue followed by discussion around

their role, particularly with vulnerable people and reducing risks in the home. The referral process was

confirmed, and option for joint visits too.

PLANNED EVENTS

North West LIG development day

arranged for 25 January 2018 from 1-4pm

in the Lintrathen Room, Whitehills HCCC.

Dates and venues for LIG meetings

confirmed for 2018.

FUNDING BIDS

Occupational Therapy Technology Bid was approved

at the last Finance Monitoring Group meeting.

Rehabilitation Approach to pain management – bid

discussed.

Autism Accreditation – this was discussed and questions

are to be sent to the bid lead.

OTHER ITEMS

A meeting is to be held in January 2018 to plan and implement Enhanced Community Services (ECS) in our

locality.

NORTH EAST CARE HOME IMPROVEMENT GROUP

Learning Sessions: The final session was held with a focus on audiology and hearing aid maintenance.

Follow up session to be arranged for falls prevention. An evaluation of this project will be carried out.

A project has started on looking at how to improve activity within care homes using College of OT

resources.

IDENTIFYING PRIORITIES The North East Locality Implementation Group held an extra

meeting in November to focus on setting priorities. This will be

finalised during the December LIG meeting.

News from the North West Locality

GP CLUSTER GROUP In-Patient bed review has been discussed

at length as it will have an impact on our

locality.

NORTH EAST CLINICAL LEADERSHIP IMPROVEMENT GROUP Dementia diagnoses in primary care will be further developed at a future Protected Learning Time event in

2018/2019.

Palliative Care Service Re-Design is imminent in the 2018.

Community Mental Health and Wellbeing Nurse in Brechin and Montrose are greatly valued by the

clinicians and patients.

Enhanced Community Support is up and working but needs further development and support.

Child and Adolescent service has changed with loss of the Community Nurse


Greg Cox, Chair, South East Locality Improvement Group

Eric Blyth, Chair, South West Locality Improvement Group

LOCALITY IMPROVEMENT MONIES

Bids for the Arbroath Healthy Living Initiative and Locality Support Worker appear to have been successful.

The bid for Direct Input of Physiotherapy into General Practice has been returned for further working up.

The Locality Improvement Group will be considering a cross-locality bid request to allow each of the Adult

Resource Centres within Learning Disability Services to become Autism Accredited.

Further locality improvement monies will be available for 2018-19 and the Group can start to focus on new

proposals early next year.

LOCALITY MANAGEMENT SUPPORT

The Locality welcomes Adrian McLaughlin,

Principal Officer as planning support for the

locality.

Adrian has replaced Vivienne Davidson, to whom

the Group are thankful for her past input.

GP CLUSTER GROUP

The Group continues to meet monthly and had

discussions with visitors from Health Information and

Psychiatry for Learning Disability in November.

December’s meeting will focus on the Macmillan

Toolkit and improving communication.

SOUTH EAST CARE HOME IMPROVEMENT GROUP

This Group is trialling a medication protocol for a 3 month period. It has agreed to take part in a cycling

project, and also set up a trial of locality based continence link network in October.

LOCALITY IMPROVEMENT GROUP UPDATE

The group continues to meet frequently. The main effort lately has been focusing on plan priorities and further

re-organisation of the group. The chair felt the locality cluster group GPs were not represented and therefore

this has been redressed in that the cluster lead now has access to the agenda and minutes of the last

meeting. This will allow input to the agenda, where appropriate and enhance communication where the

views/influence of the cluster group would benefit.

CURRENT BUSINESS

Meeting with Macmillan MCN went well and we will endeavour to implement the MCN pathway in

community nursing in order to improve communication and understanding.

Proposals are being worked up for presentation at the next LIG (14 Nov) for support to Leaning Difficulties

staff and independent Mental Health worker shared in both Monifieth and Carnoustie

We continue to work-up the plans to launch Neighbourhood Care as a pilot project in SW (Monifieth).

The LIG Chair is still attempting to engage with the authors of the Carnoustie, Monifieth & Sidlaw Locality

Planning Group in order to ensure our aims and objectives are aligned. Due to a recent change in

personnel, this has been postponed for the time being.

News from the South East Locality

News from the South West Locality


Developing the Angus Care Model

If we are to achieve the ambitions of health and social care integration it is important that we optimise our

resources and offer an integrated package of assessment, enablement, treatment, rehabilitation and

support in the community in addition to supporting carers. We will make the necessary changes through

the continued development of the Angus Care Model. To find our more about how we are developing the

Angus Care Model, please have a look at our new video HERE.

We have a lot to be proud of about the way the Angus Care Model is already supporting the delivery of

adult health and social care. We already have many excellent examples of how we work together with

local organisations to meet the needs of local people and we have made progress in the delivery of the

Angus Care Model through:

the implementation of Enhanced Community Support for older people, embedded in the South

localities, currently extending in North East locality and soon to start in the North West locality

the delivery of Help to Live at Home which has delivered greater availability within care at home

services. The establishment of the new arrangements for community alarm, early supported discharge,

and enablement which are currently being implemented.

progress in reviewing readmissions to hospital and improving delays in timely discharge.

improvements in support available through technology enabled care such as telecare, telehealthcare

and Independent Living Angus.

The figures below further illustrate the improvements that have been made:

We have recently been focusing on the opportunities for development in Care Homes, Minor Injury and

Out of Hours and Inpatient Care Services.

We are committed to following the well established principles of informing, involving, engaging and

consulting in relation to service changes. During October and December we held events in each of the

four localities. These gave locals the chance to talk to health and social care professionals. Our

conversations focused on the challenges facing services, the opportunities for change and how we can

together build a future Angus Care Model that provides the best possible care to the most people possible.

The majority of people (90%) who attended the meetings found them helpful and informative and people

(97%) overwhelmingly felt that they had been given an opportunity to comment and offer their opinion.

https://vimeo.com/246262892


Men Only Cooking is a short course designed to increase the health and wellbeing knowledge, along with

cooking and nutrition skills and confidence in social interactions of male participants when cooking. The group

sessions involve making a 2 course meal, learning basic cooking skills and providing participants with an

opportunity to socialise with other men. Since starting in the Brechin Community Campus in April 2017 the Men

Only Cooking Group has been one of the most successful groups that we have run in recent years and has

proved to be an innovative way of engaging men into provision. There are clear health benefits to

involvement in such a group and there is also the opportunity to engage learners in literacy and numeracy

learning in addition to providing social interaction.

A recent correspondence has highlighted the impact this project has had…..

Developing the Angus Care Model (cont.)

People have told us that:

• They want to be able to live independent lives, supported by the best possible care when needed.

• Care should preferably be provided in people’s own homes when possible

• If a person requires be cared for in a hospital or care home they would like it:

– to provide the best possible care,

– to be an appropriate environment,

– to be as close to home as possible, and

– to be available when needed.

To meet these requirements we will:

• help people to be as independent as possible

• work with family carers and/or others to support people

• involve people in assessments for services and support

• use only the best facilities for delivering care

• use our staff skills and resources most effectively

• develop sustainable care services

• design services which can adapt to meet future requirements

• use financial resources to deliver best care.

The IJB will review a paper in January which makes recommendations about future developments of the

Angus Care Model.

Background to … Men only Cooking in the North

East Locality

Hello, I felt the need to email you just to express how grateful I am for you organising the Men Only Cooking sessions my

father attends. My dad has lived with us (aged 82) since we lost my mum 2 years ago. Confidence has been a

huge issue for dad since mum died and with the help of Brechin Community Campus he has changed his

demeanour completely. He attends the gym three times a week with Linda (who quite honestly must be a saint)

and now attends the Men Only Cooking Classes. For the first 82 years of his life he had no interest in food, mum

did all the cooking but now he is attending the classes he not only enjoys bringing food home he has prepared

but he now takes a huge interest in what we are having and appreciates how much work goes into what I

prepare. His confidence has come back and he is meeting new people, this was a challenge at first! He made

Apple Crumble the other week, it is literally the finest I have ever tasted!!

So this is just a huge thank you from all our family from us to you, how fantastic it must feel to have a job which

makes such a positive difference to a whole family. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

‘Daughter of service user’


Update from Scottish Ambulance Service

Patient Needs Assessment (PNA)

A group which consists of managers from our operational side and control

rooms, along with staff from our strategy department is currently reviewing some

of our practices and are currently reviewing the call taking process so that it

improves both the patient and staff’s experience of going through the PNA. They

are looking to ensure it reduces the call duration but still meets the patient’s

needs. This group has been set to review our patient transport service overall.

Initial question

In order to better understand the individual needs of our patients, we are testing three different initial

questions which are asked when a patient requests an ambulance to take them to and from their

appointment. The questions are intended to start a discussion about the most suitable response for the

patient

PNA Review Period

A trial where we have extended the eligibility period to four weeks which means patients do not need to

go through the PNA each time they require transport has been underway. 30 patients with a long term

need for clinical transport took part in the trial over a three month period. Initial results are very positive,

with average calls times for ambulance bookings being reduced from 3.58 minutes to 2.22 minutes.

New staff

The Scottish Ambulance Service is currently recruiting and training new Ambulance Care Assistants

across the Country to support delivery of our scheduled care services.

Scheduled Care Reference Group

A Scheduled Care reference group has been established to review the future direction of our

Scheduled Care Service. With Health and Social Care Integration driving changes in how healthcare is

delivered across Scotland, there is a need to ensure our service is aligned to support the aim of

providing care for patients at home or in a community setting. This will include working with partners to

progress the Modern Outpatient Programme and ensuring that when patients do need clinical transport

to attend hospital for diagnostics or treatment, this is accommodated in a planned way including being

returned home timeously.

Information Sessions

A programme of awareness sessions will see staff from Scottish Ambulance Service attending wards in

both Perth Royal Infirmary and Ninewells to raise awareness around booking transport from the

Ambulance Service. The information given will relate to assessing suitability for transport, cut off times for

bookings, the information required at the time of the booking and information around our equipment

and the amount of luggage we can accommodate.

We are looking to start these sessions soon and this will give staff the opportunity to ask any questions

they have around our service. If there are specific areas where it would be helpful to deliver an

awareness session, please contact Louise Davidson on 01382 882400.

http://www.scottishambulance.com/


Visit to Letham Health & Wellbeing Centre

Members of the NHS Tayside Executive and

Endowment Advisory Group visited Letham

Health and Wellbeing Centre on Thursday 21

September 2017 to view the recent care

developments, which have been supported

by endowment funding.

Gail Smith, Head of Community Heath and

Care Services (North Angus), welcomed

Professor John Connell, Chairman, NHS

Tayside, Dr Doug Cross, Vice Chairman, NHS

Tayside, and a number of other board

members to the Centre.

She introduced Community Nursing, Community Pharmacy, ANGUSalive staff and Voluntary Action

Angus staff, who all contributed to improving the healthcare management of the population of

Letham.

Karen Fletcher, Lead Nurse, Angus Health and Social Care Partnership and Eileen Downham, District

Nurse Locality Lead presented a poster on the overview of the Letham developments. They also

presented this poster at the Queen’s Nursing Institute (QNI) national conference in London in October,

where they were invited to attend. Tracey Wyness, Senior Project Manager – Community and Social

Care, eHealth Directorate explained developments in ‘Practice Access’ to the Group, an IT

development which allows staff at the Letham Centre to view the health care record of any patient

who attends the local nurse-led clinics.

Michael McMillan, Community Pharmacist was able to highlight how the Minor Injury and Illness service

at the community pharmacy has meant that people do not have to leave the village to access

treatment. Christine Sharp of Angus Libraries, ANGUSalive demonstrated the use of the Dementia Box

and showed the team a list of healthcare related materials, which can be borrowed from the Centre

by people in Letham (see feature article on next page).

Volunteers supported by the Voluntary Action Angus team were also on hand to demonstrate the use

of the Surgery Pod, which can take a persons blood pressure and other measurements and forward

them directly to their GP practice, which avoids the need for attendance at the GP surgery. Barry

Thomson, Acting Coastal Services Manager, Voluntary Action Angus, praised the volunteers who are

enabling people to use the Surgery Pod.

Isobel Sword and Dennis Towns, who have been instrumental in establishing the local service are

members of the Development Steering Group and Letham Community Council.

Gail ended the visit by thanking everyone who has contributed to the success of the development.

She commented that “The support of the Letham population via the Community Council has been

instrumental in ensuring the project at Letham has been a success”. Gail also thanked the other

members of the Steering Group and the Executive Team for taking the time to visit the Centre.

Professor Connell said “I was incredibly impressed with everybody involved in the Letham Health and

Wellbeing Centre. They deliver a new model of support for patients in the community, improving

wellbeing and providing improved healthcare in the community”


Wellbeing support from ANGUSalive

CILIP, the library governing body, produced a document entitled “Ambition and Opportunity – A Strategy

for Public Libraries in Scotland 2015 – 2020 with a strategic aim 4 – libraries promoting wellbeing by helping

to live longer, healthier lives and improving metal wellbeing and general health.

This aim was written into the job description of the Adult and Community Development Coordinator and

as such its my job to work with partners and agencies in the community to achieve this.

We aim to help promote wellbeing in a variety of different ways;

Beating the blues – working with the NHS we have offered this online health resource in

our libraries for a few years now.

Take Control – a collection of information and books recommended by various cancer

specialists on the topic covering the disease itself, the symptoms how to live well

during treatment and survivor stories.

Dementia Memory Boxes – as well as books we loan Dementia Memory Boxes, and we

are the first authority in Scotland to do this. Library members can borrow a box for a

month, just like a book. Each box is filled with items specially chosen on a theme (such

as childhood, pets, royalty, sports etc) to aim to spark memories and thus aid discussion

and conversation in people with Dementia and their family and carers and stop the

feelings of isolation.

Long Term conditions – a new and up to date collection of books recommended by

specialists on a variety of long term conditions such as arthritis, irritable bowel conditions

and diabetes.

Examples of Dementia Memory Boxes

Gardening box Baby box Pet’s bag

I was delighted when approached and asked to work with staff at the Letham Health and Wellbeing

Centre. We are delighted to be given the chance to highlight our services in the community and

complement the excellent work going on here by providing written information and materials. We have

posters and booklists posted on display boards, and have sample dementia boxes for people to see for

themselves how they could work for them. We are working towards having the mobile library stop at the

centre at clinic times, and collect and deliver any requested materials.

We look forward to working in partnership to constantly improve services offered to the public.

Christine Sharp, Adult and Community Development Coordinator, ANGUSalive

ANGUSalive, the charitable trust responsible for the provision of

library services, has been involved with trying to support those

with health care needs for some time now.

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&ved=0ahUKEwi9r4C2xcPXAhUCXhoKHRjLBrMQjRwIBw&url=http://opendata.angus.gov.uk/no/organization&psig=AOvVaw3B1OvYKP_VGnTOpRzqpOaU&ust=1510937076281242


Congratulations!

Two Mental Health and Well-being

Nurses were highly commended at the

Mental Health Nursing Practice

Excellence Award 2017.

James Kennedy and Amy McKenzie

(pictured right) provide Mental Health

and Well-being Clinics at the Links

Health Centre, Montrose and Brechin

Health Centre.

The clinics are open to any adult

patient of their G.P. Practice who has

concerns about their Mental Health

and Well-being. The service promotes

early intervention and prevention.

Following an assessment by James or

Amy the person is offered choices that

best suit their needs. This can include

self management, self help, apps,

online services, other community

service or if necessary referral to more

specialist services.

The service has promoted mental health and well-being in

primary care and further helped to reduce the stigma and

discrimination associated with mental health.

As part of the Specialist

Dementia Unit

Improvement

Programme, Healthcare

Improvement Scotland

has been working in

collaboration with Playlist

for Life, a charity set up by

writer and broadcaster

Sally Magnusson following

the death of her mother

from dementia, to deliver

certified training to

specialist dementia units

across Scotland.

The training, delivered in March this year, was designed to help support the implementation and testing of

the use of personalised music playlists in different contexts and to evaluate the impact on people with

advanced dementia.

On Wednesday 1 November, representatives from the participating units, including Prosen Ward at

Whitehills Health & Community Care Centre, Forfar, gathered at the Stirling Court Hotel, Stirling University to

share their experience of putting their personalised plans into practice within their wards. Following the

presentations each ward was awarded ‘Playlist for Life Establishment’ status and presented with a plaque

to be displayed within their unit.

Staff from Prosen Ward receiving their plaque from Sally Magnuson and Dr Brian Robson, Medical Director, Healthcare Improvement Scotland


Help to Live at Home – Delivering Social Care

in Angus

The Angus Health and Social Care Partnership’s response to meeting the challenges of providing

effective and sustainable social care has been an innovative and bold programme called Help

to Live at Home (HTLH). The programme was initiated in 2015 and has delivered significant

changes to the organisation and availability of care for older people in Angus.

Help to Live to Home was devised to respond to two aspects of legislation – the formation of the

integrated joint boards and the introduction of self-directed support (SDS). At that time it was

also recognised that the existing model of care at home was financially and logistically

unsustainable. In 2014 eighty per cent of long term care for older people living at home was

undertaken by the council, with few other independent care providers active in the Angus area.

This was very much out of line with most other local authorities in Scotland. In addition, council

enablement services were increasingly being blocked by meeting the increasing demand for

long term services. Finally, the cost of care and rising demand meant that the service was

overspending year on year by approximately £1million and this was clearly unsustainable as it

transitioned into the Angus Health and Social Care Partnership (AHSCP).

The aim of HTLH was clear: we need an affordable and sustainable model of care at home

which would support people in all areas of Angus, in the context of increasing demographic

demand. In our internal services we would achieve efficiencies and improvements through

better time management in the arrangement of shift and rota patterns, the use of agile

processes, and an increase in the use digital tools. Also, through a project of externalising long

term care packages by working closely with partner providers, we would significantly reduce the

high cost of long term care with affordable services, whilst ensuring that staff in all sectors receive

the Scottish living wage, and redesigning contracting arrangements to focus on quality whilst

also creating a ‘fair cost of care’ approach. This in turn has allowed our internal services to

reduce in size while retaining skilled staff within the AHSCP to focus on Enablement and Response

duties.

Outcomes The redesign of working patterns undertaken in 2016 saves over £650,000 in staff costs per year

and has improved service efficiency. At time of writing, eighty-two per cent of long term care is

now delivered by independent care providers. There is a range of over twenty care

organisations operating in Angus allowing service users choice of care providers, and the

number of hours of care provide to people in Angus has increased by almost fifty percent. In

April 2015, 4,500 hours of care was delivered per week compared to 7,000 hours per week in

October 2017. This change has been achieved two years ahead of target.

Enablement and Response The formation of the Enablement and Response Service brings together the Community Alarm,

Enablement, Prevention of Admission and Early Supported Discharge services creating much

clearer lines of communication for both NHS colleagues and for service users and their families

seeking to organise or discuss services. An early pilot of the new response provision reduced

waiting times for community alarm.

The Enablement and Response service started at the end of November 2017 and is currently

within its first month as a new service. We expect this service to be integral to Enhanced

Community Support (ECS), and its new management arrangements will support improved out of

hours communications and rapid support for people in crisis and/or transition.


Help to Live at Home (cont.)

Staff in the Enablement and Response service have a new uniform which is a green tunic

and navy trousers.

Arbroath team Enablement and Response

workers in their new uniforms

From left to right – Laura Clark, Karen Hutton

and Carol Daily

Challenges going forward

As winter has arrived there is an increased

demand for care services and we are working

hard with care providers to transfer long term

care packages which are currently still being

provided by the Enablement and Response

service, and to achieve and increase in service

availability to reduce pressure on hospital beds.

This includes the provision of enhanced

payments over the winter period. By utilising our

closer links with these providers we believe we

can successfully free up our internal services to

support more discharges and prevent more

admissions, while also increasing service

provision across Angus.

The demographic profile in Angus indicates that

demand will continue to challenge our

capacity as resources are not unlimited.

Additionally the impact of many other changes

made by the Partnership is often felt most

urgently in home care; so that is the case if we

increase targets for hospital discharge, change

our residential care provision, or try to maintain

people in the community for longer.

The sustainability of care provision is a key issue and we have been working hard to introduce

a new innovative contracts framework which will come into effect from April 2018. This will

create a three tariff system which will address the cost of providing care in urban rural and

remote rural areas, and ensure resilient cover across the county. It will also much improve the

predictability of response and the speed at which referrals for service responded to. The new

contracting arrangement will have a much greater emphasis on quality and outcomes for

service users.

We recognise that service users must remain our primary consideration and good outcomes

are best achieved by working with partners both external and within the NHS to meet their

growing needs. We believe the new Enablement and Response service will provide a very

positive response to short term needs, while the new arrangements for long term care at

home will provide sustainable care provision to meet demand from the Angus population in

coming years.

Jerry Forteath, Programme Manager, Help to Live at Home


World COPD Day – 15 November

Angus respiratory specialist nurses

and representatives of the local

patient COPD support groups and

Chest Heart & Stroke Scotland

attended GSK factory in Montrose

on World COPD Day 15th

November 2017 to raise awareness

of COPD and offer screening for

employees.

65 patients took up the offer of

screening, 55 (85%) were males and

10 (15%) were female. The average

age of males was 45yrs and for

females this was 45.8yrs.

Those who agreed were asked about their age, smoking habits and any respiratory symptoms

and had their lung function tested using COPD6 Microspirometry.

12 (18%) were current smokers and were given smoking cessation advice. 23 (35%) were ex

smokers and 30 (46%) had never smoked.

1 person (1%), a current smoker was found to be at risk of having COPD and was given lifestyle

advice and advised to attend their GP practice for further investigation.

Comments

This was deemed to be a

successful way of

engaging with the public

and generally raising

awareness of COPD

however it was not an

effective way of reaching

those at high risk of COPD

due to the relatively

young age and low

smoking rates of the

workforce.

Having literature to

support smoking cessation

advice is important.


Telemedicine Update

TRUECALL

Pictured right are Glenda Hunter and Claire

McPartlin at B&Q, Arbroath on 22 November. They

were raising awareness of 'TrueCall' as part of

Digital Health & Care week.

TrueCall can block 95% of nuisance

telephone calls and Angus Council is currently

providing these free of charge to vulnerable

people across Angus.

For more information contact Glenda on

[email protected]

DIGITAL AWARENESS WEEK

During national Digital Health and Care Week (20 – 26 November), Angus Health & Social Care Partnership

raised awareness of how the latest technology is supporting people to live independently at home.

Angus Health & Social Care Partnership uses technology enabled care to provide assistance to

approximately 3000 people using a range of telecare solutions which can be installed to support an

individual's care package at home. Examples of telecare equipment include community alarms, door exit

monitors, fall detectors, smoke and gas alarms and phone call blocker units. Use of these types of

equipment can help maintain people’s independence and reduce carer anxiety and uptake of telecare

equipment has risen in Angus by 14% in the last year as more people realise the benefits it can provide.

To raise awareness of the use of telecare equipment in people’s homes, we held a series of information

sharing events across Angus where people asked questions to expert advisors. Shona Burge, Home Mobile

Health Monitoring Development Manager at the Partnership, said, “Advances in technology are helping

us provide a range of health and social care solutions and in Angus we are trialling and developing a

number of projects. For example ‘Florence’ or ‘Flo’ is a new technology being piloted across

Tayside. ‘Florence’ is a text messaging system that uses supportive, motivational and interactive text

messages to help people manage their medical conditions at home or on the move.

People have already benefitted from using Flo to both gain and lose weight and help manage their heart

condition. Flo has also helped young mums-to-be to quit smoking and is being trialled within a pain

management programme.

“She asks you to give her your weight – she’s “My experience, when I’ve shown other clinicians how

that friend you’ll tell your weight to” to use Flo, is that they’ve been pleasantly surprised

that it really doesn’t take as long as they thought.”

mailto:[email protected]


DIGITAL AWARENESS WEEK (cont.) Technology is also being used to help people stay active for longer. We know physical activity can

improve quality of life and maintain good physical and mental health, however, as people reach a

certain age, it can often be more difficult for them to take part in activities.”

As part of Digital Awareness Week we launched a short film to promote Flo – you can access the

video here: https://youtu.be/lBDbLl4Zl2k ‘Video Active’, another technology enabled initiative, has made this a lot easier for residents in some care

homes in Angus. Video Active involves various Angus Alive sports centres beaming out classes to care

homes in real time via NHS Tayside video conferencing facilities. The residents can then take part in the

classes without having to travel to the centre.

The same video conferencing facilities can enable clinical conversations and observations to take place

at a distance. The first case conference using this technology was conducted between a care home in

Monifieth and the neurology department in Ninewells.

Dr Ian Morrison, consultant neurologist with NHS Tayside said, “I thought the video conference meeting

was very useful. A virtual multidisciplinary team meeting of this type is a good chance to meet with

colleagues in Primary Care and carers of patients whose complex needs make it very difficult for them to

travel to hospital. It allowed me to maximise my time in Ninewells by attending meetings, clinic

consultations and meeting with relatives before and after the teleconference. It would not have been

possible to do this otherwise.”

Six things you need to know about the Carer’s Act

Carers Assessments will be replaced by Adult Carer Support Plans (ACSP) and Young Carer Statements

(YCS). These will be available to all carers on request. If the person being cared for has a terminal illness

there will be a time-limit for completing them. ACSP and YCS will be used to identify if a carer is eligible for support against local eligibility criteria.

Angus will publish its own local eligibility criteria for adult and young carers before the Act comes into

force on 1st April 2018

Rights - The Carers (Scotland) Act 2016 introduces new rights for unpaid carers and new duties to

recognize and support them, for health & social care partnerships, local councils and the NHS. Each NHS area will be required to involve carers and take account of their views when making decisions

relating to hospital discharge for the person they care for.

Regardless of whether carers meet local eligibility criteria, they can still get help and can access services

such as information and advice from local councils and local carer support services. Carers may also be

offered support such as breaks from caring.

Scottish Government wants unpaid carers to be well supported so that they can continue to care, if they

wish to, in good health and have a life alongside caring. Three out of five of us will become carers at

some stage in our lives and 1 in 10 of us is already fulfilling some sort of caring role.

* * * Watch out for further updates in the run up to implementation. * * *

https://youtu.be/lBDbLl4Zl2k


Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a happy and healthy New Year.

GET IN TOUCH

The aim of this newsletter is to provide you with an update on what's

going on in Angus Health and Social Care Partnership, share

developments and bring you stories that show how it all fits together.

We welcome your feedback on anything covered in this issue and

suggestions for future issues.

All contributions are welcomed. The deadline for articles for the

March edition is 23 February 2018 and these should be emailed to

[email protected].

Thank you!

Christmas Jumper Day at St. Margaret’s

On 15 December,

staff from Angus

Health & Social

Care Partnership

and ANGUSalive

entered into the

festive spirit in

support of

Christmas Jumper

Day. Funds raised

will be donated to ‘Save the Children’.

Follow us on Facebook here:

https://www.facebook.com/AHSCP/

and like the page.

mailto:[email protected]

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‘integration matters’ matters/ahscp_newsletter... · ‘integration matters’ - 5 - december...

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