South West London CCG Annual Report and Accounts 2020/21

We have put together a series of measures to further support care homes residents and staff this year. Some of the measures were prescribed by national guidance, so now all care homes: • Have a nominated GP lead. • Are supported by primary care with weekly check ins and multi-disciplinary team support. • Have access to pharmacy support. • Are aligned to a Primary Care Network (PCN), apart from one care home that is registered with a GP in Westminster. In addition to the national guidance, we have provided ongoing nursing and therapy support to care homes for older people through the In-Reach and therapy teams alongside wider support from dieticians and speech therapists. Our Behaviour and Challenging Communication Team has been supporting staff in care homes to care for their residents who are experiencing behavioural and emotional difficulties associated with a mental health diagnosis and/or dementia. The team have also provided mental health and wellbeing support to the staff in care homes during the pandemic. We have had an intensive focus on infection prevention and control in our care homes this year and have provided intensive training course for care home staff. This training is supplemented by weekly Infection Prevention and Control webinars for all health and care providers in South West London. Over the last year we have provided telehealth kits to nursing homes and are working with care homes and clinical leads across South West London on a wider roll out. As well as care homes for older people, in 2021 we will be providing telehealth kits to care homes for mental health patients and people with learning disabilities. We have supported care homes in South West London to begin using NHS mail, which has accelerated the discharge process for patients from hospital back to their care homes. This is because patient identifiable information like medical records can be transferred securely through this system. Most care homes are now using NHS Mail, and we hope to support all care homes in South West London to use NHS Mail or other secure email services this year. We introduced our E-Red bag initiative, which sees documents being sent electronically by the care home to acute hospitals when residents are transferred by ambulance, across South West London this year. These documents are linked to residents’ personal records, allowing a smoother and safer handover of care between providers. We are now working with our acute hospitals and care homes to accelerate the uptake of this initiative, with particular focus on making sure that care homes meet the required data security and protection standards. We have provided training to care home staff on spotting the soft signs of deterioration in residents (RESTORE2/NEWS 2 training). Annual Report and Accounts 2020/21 | 95