Children and Young People Network
Pictured above: delegates at this month's children and young people summit.
Representatives from across a wide range of disciplines, including health, care, education and the voluntary sector came together at a recent summit to explore the health of children and young people and how the impact of poverty and inequalities has affected their lives.
Around 130 people attended the event at the British Muslim Heritage Centre, in Whalley Range, to discuss the Children and Young People CORE 20 PLUS 5 Framework, which was developed by NHS England to support the reduction of health inequalities at national, regional and local level, particularly through the plans for each integrated care system (ICS).
Each ICS is tasked with improving health outcomes for children and young people in five clinical areas and in identifying which groups of children need to be prioritised.
The event looked at the five clinical areas outlined in the framework (asthma, epilepsy, diabetes, mental health, oral/dental health) and reviewed the data through the lens of inequality and patient experience. It also started to look at which PLUS groups need to be prioritised for Greater Manchester. Read more about CORE20PLUS5.
The chair of the forum, Dr Carol Ewing (pictured below right), welcomed all participants and affirmed her passion and advocacy for the voice of children, young people and families being part of the workshop and that together everyone had a part to play in improving outcomes for children and young people.
She said: “This is the first time in three years we have had people from across the system meeting face-to-face and we have the opportunity to share good practice and discuss in workshops areas for improvements and actions to take forward as a system and to inform the Greater Manchester Children and Young People’s plan.”
The event started with Dr Marie Marshall, consultant nurse for transition, and Nicola Rigby, Teenage Cancer Trust youth support coordinator, Manchester University NHS FT, describing a young person’s journey with a long-term condition and the beneficial impact of having a dedicated youth worker.
Ian Sinha, national and regional clinical expert, talked about the detrimental impact of poverty and inequality on the health and lives of children in the North West.
Dr Debs Thompson, consultant in public health, GM Population Health, NHS Greater Manchester Integrated Care, described ongoing Greater Manchester system-wide programmes which have been produced in response to the Build Back Fairer report and how we can all work together to improve equity and reduce health inequality for our children and young people.
Gill Gibson, deputy chief nurse for NHS GM Integrated Care, talked about how the children and young people voice is at the heart of its plans and that we need to move towards a preventative approach by working in partnership with local authorities and public health.
There were also presentations by clinical experts in the five clinical areas and two workshops focused on poverty proofing child health pathways and integrating data.
A report containing an action plan will be produced and shared widely very shortly.
Themes emerging included the need for the action plan to be owned by the Greater Manchester system, which is responsible for improving equity and reducing health inequalities, further insight being needed around the ‘PLUS’ groups, and agreement and management of the data and intelligence to understand the needs of those with the poorest outcomes.
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A new renal research centre will honour the legacy of the Networks’ former senate chair Professor Donal O’Donoghue OBE and continue his work to improve diagnosis, care and treatment for kidney patients.
Professor O’Donoghue (pictured left), who was senate chair for Greater Manchester, Lancashire and South Cumbria, worked at Salford Royal Hospital for more than 25 years, raising awareness of kidney disease and making sure patients’ voices were always heard. He sadly died in January 2021.
Dr Peter Elton, our clinical director, said: "It was a joy working with Donal. He was able to marry up his great clinical knowledge with an appreciation of the wider determinants on health which created renal health inequalities. It made him a great leader."
The new Donal O’Donoghue Renal Research Centre, at Northern Care Alliance’s (NCA) Salford Royal Hospital, will be led by his friend and colleague Professor Phil Kalra, who is also NCA Director of Research and Innovation. He will outline the plans for the centre at a launch event at the hospital on Wednesday, March 8 (3pm-5.20pm).
Other speakers will include Sandra Currie, chief executive of Kidney Research UK, Professor Paul Cockwell, president of the UK Kidney Association and Professor John Feehally, consultant Nephrologist at the University Hospitals of Leicester.
Salford's Professor Smeeta Sinha has followed in Prof Donoghue’s footsteps to become national clinical director for kidney care and will also give a presentation. In addition, there will be a focus on collaborative working and on research led by non-medical colleagues.
More information and to register to attend.
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The Palliative and End of Life Care (PEoLC) programme team was represented at a national conference this month.
Gill Bailey, project manager, joined Dr Nathan Davies (both pictured above) at the virtual Marie Curie Research Conference ‘Improving End of Life for All’ to speak about the latter's guide ‘Rules of Thumb’.
The document, which has since been turned into a deliverable programme, gives advice to those who are looking after people with dementia who need palliative and end of life care.
Around 900 people attended the conference and there was positive feedback on Gill and Dr Davies’ presentation.
The Network’s project with Dr Davies built on the earlier work of Greater Manchester Dementia United, in partnership with Springhill and St Ann’s hospices, to create an educational resource and pilot the delivery of the programme, beginning in April 2021.
The aim was to work with the Rules of Thumb guide to transform it into a deliverable education programme that offered facilitators a comprehensive set of resources which would be flexible enough to adapt to a diverse group of delegates and delivery styles.
The programme requires a multi-disciplinary approach to include multi-disciplinary team education and collaborative working with care homes, as well as supporting Greater Manchester work on enhancing health in care homes.
A project team led by Dr Helen Martin was available to support each of the five pilot localities from Greater Manchester and Eastern Cheshire in delivering the objectives and engaging with key partners and stakeholders. The project team was keen to support early implementers and offered a programme of virtual support sessions to the educators of the locality delivery sites.
The programme aims to offer a flexible way to address some of the aspects of care and unique challenges that professionals identify when they are supporting people living with dementia at the end-of-life.
There was a programme evaluation which took place from the perspectives of delegates who attended the locality sessions and also the education delivery teams.
Gill said: "It was really good to be able to promote the work of the Network and share a really useful resource so widely."
Find out more information about The Rules of Thumb education programme.
This month has seen the launch of the latest Act F.A.S.T. campaign by NHS England in conjunction with the Stroke Association.
The campaign is run every few years and highlights that stroke is a medical emergency and taking quick action by dialling 999 when key symptoms occur can save lives and reduce the chance of disability.
The current challenges faced by ambulance services has led to increased waiting times for category 2 calls (which includes a suspected stroke) and the campaign seeks to remind people, especially those over 50 who are most at risk, of the need to take urgent action.
In Greater Manchester, the Network is working locally to engage with communities who may be at increased risk and who may not access conventional media channels or where language may be a barrier to understanding the campaign’s key messages.
It is also keeping an eye on important data about how long it is taking for people to present at the hyper acute stroke units with stroke symptoms and we are working closely with our stroke teams and the ambulance service to try and ensure as many people as possible arrive within the time critical windows for treatment.
The campaign runs until March 31 and includes TV, video on demand, radio, social media, partnerships and multi-cultural activity.
Think and Act F.A.S.T. if you see any single one of these signs of a stroke:
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Face – has their face fallen on one side? Can they smile?
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Arms – can they raise both arms and keep them there?
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Speech – is their speech slurred?
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Time – even if you’re not sure, call 999.
Time is running out to nominate an individual or team for the Greater Manchester Health and Care Champion Awards 2023.
The awards are open to all individuals or teams, paid or unpaid, who work in the health or care sector in Greater Manchester, and also to others who, through broader work, help improve the health and wellbeing of others.
Nominations can be completed by colleagues or members of the public who wish to see an individual or team’s hard work recognised.
Nominations can be completed online and must be returned by the deadline of Friday, March 10, 2023.
The awards are organised by NHS Greater Manchester Integrated Care (NHS GM). The winners will be announced at a sponsored event in early July 2023.
The Network’s midwife clinical lead is fronting a Greater Manchester campaign to encourage women to see their midwife as soon as they know they are pregnant.
Eileen Stringer (pictured left) is promoting the new As Soon as You’re Pregnant campaign, which highlights the importance of mums-to-be attending their first appointment with the midwife services before 10 weeks of pregnancy.
Eileen says in the press release which accompanies the campaign: “Meeting your midwife is the first step towards a healthy pregnancy and ensures that you get the help and support that you and your baby need.”
Midwives offer a set of vital screening tests, including those for sickle cell and thalassaemia, that should be done before 10 weeks.
Both are serious blood disorders that can be passed down to babies by their parents and having either condition usually means lifelong additional healthcare. This is particularly important for women from African, Caribbean, South Asian and Mediterranean backgrounds who are more likely to have a pregnancy affected by sickle cell or thalassaemia.
Read the press release.
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In 2021, all 13 pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) services for Greater Manchester signed-up to the Royal College of Physicians’ Pulmonary Rehabilitation Services Accreditation Scheme (PRSAS).
Achieving accreditation demonstrates that the service offers a high quality and safe service. Patients will feel more confident of receiving excellent consistent care, better accessibility, quality of information and improved pathways.
The Network has had regular team meetings with PR leads over the last two years to help them move forward with the accreditation process.
With some services now preparing to submit their evidence, the Network's PR clinical advisor Sue Mason, along with Cynthia Yim from PRSAS, have met with all Greater Manchester services individually to provide tailored support and guidance.
Sue advised how to access and develop the necessary evidence and where best for teams to focus their efforts. All services are working with their trust departments and commissioners to collate the required information and ensure they meet the necessary standards.
Services have already invested a lot of time and effort into this process and the meetings confirmed that working collaboratively with their commissioners and trusts, they have clear plans in place to achieve accreditation by the end of March 2024.
The development of a Greater Manchester long Covid research programme, led by the Network’s clinical lead Professor Nawar Bakerly, is now being supported by the SCN’s Diabetes Network.
The diabetes team is linking with diabetes clinical leads, Diabetes UK and the national diabetes network to promote the project to patients.
There are close links with long Covid and diabetes and the aim is to bring research together across both these conditions.
Heart Failure – remote monitoring
Greater Manchester is committed to improving the outcomes and quality of life of citizens who are managing their heart failure symptoms on a day-to-day basis by transforming the way we manage their health using digital technologies.
The Network’s heart failure working group initiated an improvement project in late 2022 to investigate better ways to remotely monitor patients.
The project aims to improve heart failure care by:
- Increasing the number of heart failure patients who are managed efficiently
- Reducing the number of heart failure admissions across our system
- Improving waiting times for elective cardiac surgery within our tertiary centre.
Since the start of the improvement project, 47 patients have been registered on the remote monitoring programme, with early benefits including the detection of several episodes of atrial fibrillation and rapid optimisation of medicines.
Following their successful support with the surgical work, social enterprise health and wellbeing services provider FCMS will be supporting with the enrolment of patients in central Manchester with patients from Stockport being eligible from next month.
#Heart Month – February 2023 and OHCA
February has been #HeartMonth and many organisations, charities and local authorities have been spreading awareness of heart health.
A total of 80% of out-of-hospital cardiac arrests happen in the home, and the Network is re-initiating the Out of Hospital Cardiac Arrest (OHCA) project, alongside the North West Ambulance Service (NWAS).
The project team aims to:
- Implement a pathway for out-of-hospital cardiac (OHCA) arrest
- Implement a pathway for inter-hospital transfer
- Implement an aftercare protocol for patients who suffer an OHCA, including the immediate care following admission, as well as linking in with neurorehabilitation for long term support.
Rapid Access for Acute Coronary Syndrome (RAACS) Pathway
The Rapid Access for Acute Coronary Syndrome (RAACS) pathway was relaunched within Greater Manchester on February 13.
This was piloted previously but came to a standstill due to the pandemic. Within Greater Manchester, there is currently a target of admission to angiography of 72 hours but within this pathway, higher risk patients are identified, and the target is for admission to angiography within 24 hours. The aim is to achieve better clinical outcomes, reduce length of stay and improve the patient journey.
Webinar to help understand cardiovascular health inequalities
A webinar is being held to explore a new online tool by the Strategy Unit and British Heart Foundation which helps identify cardiovascular health inequalities.
This webinar will outline the intended use of the tool, how to navigate it, and answer any questions you might have about it. Find out more details.
Thank you!
The cardiac team would like to thank Rapinder Sandhu and Olivia Bull from the North of England commissioning service, for their continued support of the OHCA, RAACS and Stable Chest Pain project work while they are with us.
The Low-Calorie Diet Programme is running an Urdu and Hindi language group for those requiring a specific language service.
Practices across Greater Manchester can receive tailored support through Xyla’s engagement team to identify, contact and recruit people into the group, which starts in late April.
The Low-Calorie Diet programme is available to people who are overweight and living with type 2 diabetes. The programme provides a low-calorie diet treatment for people to improve their diabetes control, reduce diabetes-related medication and in some cases, put their type 2 diabetes into remission.
We have created an information video about the programme, which is recorded in Urdu here. This video is presented by Irram, our diabetes practitioner, who will be leading the group.
For more information about the Low-Calorie Diet programme and the direct support available to practices through Xyla’s engagement team, please contact Anna.Agar@xylahealth.com.
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