Derbyshire Dales Primary Care Network (PCN) is setting up a new home visiting service which will see a team of different professionals working together to support housebound patients.
Overseeing the new service, set to launch from May 2022, will be clinical lead and new community GP, Dr David Munkenbeck, who joined on 1 February, having worked previously as a salaried GP in Sheffield. The service will initially run for between two to three days per week and will expand over the coming years.
An acute home visiting service is where different professionals from across health and social care, working together as a team, provide person-centred, timely, responsive care for vulnerable individuals. The service is part of the Ageing Well and Team Up Derbyshire approach to improving care for the housebound population.
The Derbyshire Dales home visiting service is initially set to feature four paramedics who will receive a comprehensive induction programme to support their transition from the ambulance service to primary care.
Alex Guevara, Operations Lead for Team Up Derbyshire Dales, who has worked as a paramedic and clinical practitioner, says: “Paramedics are an obvious choice to play a key role as they are already very capable of providing a high standard of care to those in their own home. Our new service allows them to spend more time with patients in order to identify needs other than the more obvious medical care.”
The community GP and the multi-disciplinary team providing the service are to be based at Whitworth Hospital, Matlock, where they will be integrated with local care partners such as local authority social care and Derbyshire Community Health Services which already provide some of the services that Team Up will be focused on.
Alex adds: “This hub at Whitworth Hospital will allow us to bring everyone together under one roof. The different members of the team will be able to talk about the care that the patient requires and refer to different services. This is linked into the holistic perspective of the service where someone can take the time to sit down with a person and identify all the areas in which they might need support – it could be the need for a walking frame, a befriending service because they’re lonely, or maybe support with finances and filling in a form for benefits. Back at the hub there will be colleagues from areas like social care, occupational therapy and community matrons who can help. It is so much easier to do this in the hub rather than pinging emails about.”
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