South West London CCG Annual Report and Accounts 2020/21

Health and social care staff worked with four priority groups of patients: • Residents of care homes. • Patients who need advanced care plans to support end of life care. • Those who are severely frail. • Individuals with multiple, complex co- morbidities. The South West London Palliative Care Task and Finish Subgroup supported GPs, hospices and community health staff, worked with vulnerable members of our community and their families, to provide them with the advice and clinical support, around hospital admission. We also made sure that patients had access to end-of-life medicine packs in the community to enable them to remain safely at home and worked with pharmacy colleagues to make sure the right medicines were available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We also improved access to video conferencing in care homes in South West London and ensured they had the right equipment to care for their vulnerable residents. Protecting our staff We established robust testing procedures for staff and worked hard to make sure staff had the right protective equipment at the right time. There were many practical challenges in doing this and our Supply Cell worked hard across health and care organisations locally and with national suppliers to make sure we addressed any shortfalls with PPE as quickly as possible. The South West London Procurement Partnership secured and delivered equipment for dozens of organisations whilst the national supply chain solution was being put in place for providers in all community care settings, playing a vital role in maintaining the safe delivery of clinical and care services. We also established a mutual aid process for organisations that were having trouble procuring PPE, helping more than 180 organisations access supplies, including care homes, hospices and local authorities. Our South West London organisations also worked closely together sharing supplies between organisations when stocks were running low. Risk assessments were undertaken for all NHS staff, including CCG staff, with a particular focus and priority on those who may be most affected by the pandemic; for example, those from an ethnic minority background, older staff, pregnant staff or those with a long term or chronic condition. Increasing our workforce To help us respond to the pandemic, we were able to expand our South West London workforce, working with the London Workforce Hub and South West London NHS Providers, welcoming people who had retired or who had moved to other sectors back to the NHS, with medical students and volunteers further increasing our numbers. Staff testing Early in the pandemic we increased testing capacity in South West London by setting 28 | NHS South West London Clinical Commissioning Group