NHS services land national award
Coventry and Warwickshire mental health experts have won a national award for ‘exemplary’ and ‘complex’ work to help patients from our area.
Staff at Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership NHS Trust have been working for four years now on a project to help visit people with a mental health or a learning disability and who are being cared for in specialist facilities outside the area.
With NHS Arden and Great East Midlands Commissioning Support Unit, they won the ‘Value and Improvement in Mental Health category’ at the prestigious Health Service Journal ‘Value in Healthcare’ Awards 2015, this week.
The ‘Coming Home’ project involved partnership working with local authorities, providers and commissioners to repatriate 134 patients within its first three years.
In evaluating the project, the judges said: “The work being done here is exemplary and sustainable, in a complex area with often challenging patients.”
The greatest benefit of the project has been the positive impact on service users. One carer, whose husband was brought back to Warwickshire having been cared for in Northampton, said: “I think it’s a fantastic idea…Keith gets to see me far more, we get better time together and it’s so much less stressful for me.”
Another patient, who has moved back to Coventry from a placement in the north east, said: “I am much closer to my family, I am able to get to see my dad every week, and I now have my own place. So yes, I am feeling much better.”
The cost savings arising from the project have been significant. The project involves the three Clinical Commissioning Groups – NHS Coventry, NHS Warwickshire North, and NHS South Warwickshire – who have realised over £12 million in savings so far.
Wendy Lane, Consultancy Services Director, NHS Arden & GEM CSU, said: “We are thrilled to have won this award for what has been a truly inspiring collaborative project. The mental health repatriation scheme has not only delivered significant cost savings but has also improved outcomes for patients and enhanced local capacity to provide services for those with complex mental health needs.”
Josie Spencer, Director of Operations, Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership Trust, said: “The success of the project has been down to collaborative working at every stage. From the partnership approach adopted by the three CCGs involved, to the social care teams and clinical specialists working with the patients, we have worked together to deliver better and more cost effective services to patients.”
The HSJ Value in Healthcare awards had a record-breaking year for entries with more organisations than ever before, all demonstrating that they are striving to improve value and efficiency in healthcare.
Winning organisations were selected by a judging panel made up of senior and influential figures from the health sector. These include:
• Charles Alessi, Chairman, National Association of Primary Care
• Professor Jonathan Kay, Clinical Informatics Director, NHS England
• Michael MacDonnell, Head of Strategy, NHS England
• Robert Knott, National Director NHS Procurement, Department of Health