Patients benefiting from joint working

Patients in Blackburn with Darwen are benefiting from health and social care agencies joining forces and preventing unnecessary admissions to hospital or to care homes.

The Out of Hours Integrated Service (OOHIS) has been running since November and is an out of hours support scheme that helps prevent people going in hospital or a care home when they don’t need to.

It does this by acting as a single point of contact and will use the expertise of a wide range of health and social care professional to provide assessment, signposting and referral services.

For example, paramedics referred a man who had fallen at home. He was assessed as not needing to go to hospital. Instead of taking him to a rest home, the ambulance staff referred to OOHIS. 

The service set-up a series of visits to make sure he was safe until further support could be put in place for the longer term.

The service also supports hospital discharges to try to avoid people who have just come back from hospital being readmitted again.

Since OOHIS began, 52 people have used it. Analysis shows several of them have been supported so they did not need to go into hospital or residential care.

Councillor Mohammed Khan, Executive Member for Health and Adult Social Care, said: “The scheme is still in its early days but I am pleased with some of the results we have seen so far.

“This service is a real innovation and an excellent example of the Council working with the NHS to benefit people of this borough.

“I am really clear of the need to reduce the number of unnecessary admissions to hospitals or care homes. If people need to go to hospital, of course they will be taken to hospital. But clearly, if a person is best served at being referred to a different service or can get the support and help they need at home, then OOHIS can help do that.

“People have told us they want to get the right help and support first time and ideally they want to be able to get that help and support at home. They want to remain as independent as possible for as long as they can.

“Also, we need to manage demands on services. The best way for us to overcome the challenges public services face is by working together and also working with the community.”

Dr Chris Clayton, clinical chief officer of Blackburn with Darwen Clinical Commissioning Group, said: “It’s still early in the service’s development but the first results look encouraging. 

“We are working very closely with our local authority colleagues to provide a streamlined service for patients which helps cut the high number of admissions to residential care and high usage of hospital emergency care services.”