Humber Acute Services Programme - Focus Group: Cardiology, Complex Rehabilitation, Critical Care, Neurology, Stroke

We Asked

You, your family, friends and carers to attend a series of workshops across the Humber area to share with us your experiences of accessing specialist services. 
Over the course of the five events, a total of 70 people attended and took part in the focus group discussions. In addition, 49 people took part in focus group discussions hosted by the MS Society at their meetings in Grimsby, Scunthorpe and Hull. 

You Said

Develop and support the workforce
Participants in the focus groups highlighted a number of opportunities to develop and make best use of the workforce within our acute hospitals. Opportunities identified include:

• Offer group appointments and ‘one-stop-shops’ to make best use of clinicians’ time;
• Do more to promote the area as a positive place to live and work
• Improve networking and cross-site working to provide peer-support for staff in similar roles;
• Provide higher level training to patients and carers to enable them to support themselves and their loved ones better and help avoid crisis situations.

Give patients more information, knowledge and control
A common theme amongst participants was that they wanted more information about what was happening in their care, how long they would have to wait and what to expect next in their treatment.

In order to improve the experience of patients and their families and to enable them to look after themselves better, a number of opportunities exist, such as:

• Develop simple and easy to understand guides for patients that explain treatment pathways and what to expect when
• Communicate to patients where they are in the queue and how long they should expect to wait;
• Provide support, training and permission for patients and their families to look after themselves and manage their condition (with the option for responsive advice and support when needed).

Make better use of technology
Participants were keen to see that hospitals are making the most of technological innovations to improve services and make the most of scare resources (especially workforce). Technological solutions were put forward by participants as a way to overcome access challenges and disparities of service between different areas and support those in remote rural locations.

• Suggestions for how to develop services through technology include:
• Make shared care records available to all those involved in a patients’ care (including the individual) as standard;
• Support better cross-site working through the use of technology;
• Enable video consultations to improve access;
• Invest in wearables and other technology to improve remote monitoring and make services more responsive to need.

Support patients to improve their wider wellbeing
In almost all groups, participants recognised the benefits of getting to know other people who have had similar experiences. It is particularly important to those with long-term conditions, progressive diseases and/or other disabilities to have access to wider services that can improve their overall wellbeing that are not directly linked to the primary condition that they are being treated for. Opportunities to improve services were identified, which include:

• Ensuring those providing acute services are aware of, and are actively linking patients with, support groups and other activities/sources of support in their community;
• Working with local authorities and wider health partners to improve the accessibility of leisure services and other wellbeing support services.

Improve access to and equity of service
Travel and access issues were raised by many (though not all) participants. Many participants recognised the need to travel, particularly for more specialist treatment, but were concerned (often on behalf of other patients) that this might make accessing treatment more difficult. Many participants noted that there are opportunities to improve the experience if they do have to travel:

• Make it easier to park and/or drop off loved ones more easily;
• Consolidate appointments to reduce frequency of travel;
• Enable more remote monitoring and video consultations;
• Make sure patients from all geographical areas can access the same services as their neighbours.

We Did

Next we will:
The diverse feedback given over the course of the events should, wherever possible, will be taken into consideration when undertaking the next stage of the review and developing proposals for the future of these specialities.

The full findings of the report are available here