One aim of the PCN is to analyse the needs of the population, setting shared goals, ambitions, and targets for our communities.
Our Clinical Lead for Health Inequalities, Clare Watson, focuses on aims to address health inequalities, differences in morbidity, life expectancy and access to healthcare in the context of the wider determinants of health. Clare works across all 12 Nottingham West PCN practices; she works closely with patients, the clinical director, neighbourhood leads, community partners and integrated care system (ICS) representatives to identify priorities, then helps initiate and embed multidisciplinary systems to achieve the goals set. The vision for the work Clare does is to see “Exceptional quality healthcare for all – through equitable access, excellent experience and opportunities for all”.
Clare was pivotal in the creation of a PCN pharmacy cardiology team, set up to support patients with a high blood pressure to receive gold standard care, through diagnosis, treatment and ongoing management in line with NICE guidance. This team has won an award for their partnership working and great outcomes for patients.
Clare has also facilitated a year-long engagement with local patients who have a diagnosed learning disability, their families and carers. This work has allowed the PCN to really hear about what is important to this group of patients and work is now underway to implement improvement initiatives based on this direct feedback.
New Ambassador role to share PCN work on health inequalities
Clare Watson, Nottingham West PCN Clinical Lead for Health Inequalities, has become an ‘Alumni Ambassador’ for the national Core20PLUS5 programme. This new role will see her sharing the successes of the PCN to support colleagues across the country as they work to tackle healthcare inequalities.
About Core20PLUS5
Core20PLUS5 is an NHS England approach to inform action to reduce healthcare inequalities at both a national and system level. The approach defines a target population – the ‘Core20PLUS’ – including the most deprived 20% of the national population as identified by the national Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) and identifies ‘5’ focus clinical areas requiring accelerated improvement – maternity, severe mental illness (SMI), chronic respiratory disease, early cancer diagnosis, and hypertension case-finding and optimal management and lipid optimal management.
Celebrating and sharing achievements
Clare attended the Ambassador graduation event for cohort 2 in October. She said: “It was a wonderful opportunity to celebrate all we had achieved both personally and collectively as ambassadors over the last 12 months as well as an opportunity to network with colleagues from across the country.
“I was kindly asked to present the work the PCN has completed aimed at improving access, experience, and outcomes for people with learning disabilities within our community. My poster formed part of a networking marketplace along with 16 other posters from ambassadors across the country.
“At the graduation, we were invited to become ‘Alumni ambassadors’ making a life-long commitment to working to improve healthcare inequality within our sphere of influence. It was a huge privilege to be part of this cohort of ambassadors and I am exceptionally proud of what we have achieved as a PCN. As an Alumni I look forward to supporting the next cohort of ambassadors and the work they will take on to tackle healthcare inequity across the UK.”
Find out more
To find out more about Core20PLUS5, go to https://www.england.nhs.uk/about/equality/equality-hub/national-healthcare-inequalities-improvement-programme/core20plus5/
To find out more about the PCN’s focus on reducing health inequalities, go to https://www.nottinghamwestpcn.co.uk/focus-on-addressing-health-inequalities/
Achievements over the year to May 2024 include:
- We have seen a 260% increase in hypertension prevalence across the PCN as a direct result of the work undertaken by the PCN Pharmacy-cardiology team.
- Every neighbourhood across the PCN now has access to postural stability classes to support our frail patients to prevent falls.
- Uptake and access to the AHC and HCAP have increased again this year with the PCN not only achieving the IIF HI03 upper threshold with 84% but seeing improved performance compared to last year (82%).
- People with learning disabilities, their parents and carers have been given a voice and have been supported to use their voice to influence positive change that directly affects them and their experience of care.
- Staff providing care to people with learning disabilities have received meaningful and empowering training to give them the tools to communicate and build relationships in a way that will significantly improve patient experience.
- We have trained trainee nurse associates (TNAs) via a partnership with Broxtowe day service, so that all TNAs had 3 weeks intensive exposure to people with a variety of additional needs, to see gold standard communication and relationship building role modelled by experts and this has evaluated so well that it has now been rolled out across 5 other PCNs and we are looking to scale across the ICS.
- We are in the process of setting up sensory flu clinics within familiar community settings for all LD patients as an additional option for them this winter.
- We have secured funding and have now trained 10 new Boccia leaders across Broxtowe and are working with them to facilitate the set up of many new Boccia sessions for our patients to access within the community – Boccia is a fully accessible sport, Boccia England attended the roadshows and everyone loved playing it.
- We are facilitating the first Nottinghamshire ‘Charlottes Tandems’ connector site, a National charity who freely loan out adapted bikes so that people with additional needs can still enjoy the experience of cycling.
Wise Moves – postural stability project
The PCN has worked in partnership with Liberty Leisure Limited (Lleisure) to reduce the likelihood of falls as a result of frailty. The aim of the project was to offer postural stability classes across Broxtowe for patients who are mildly frail, to reduce hip fracture-related hospital admissions and support people to be stronger and more independent into later life. Read more about our work below and how we will be continuing with Wise Moves into 2025.