New non-smokers congratulated by ICP Clinical Director Thilan Bartholomeuz

If you are one of one million smokers across the country who has quit during lockdown, well done!

It is a great achievement, particularly with the other stressors of being in lockdown.

And if you don’t smoke but have helped someone quit, good for you – we know that support from friends and family is one crucial factors to helping smokers quit.

The benefits of stopping smoking are well known so I won’t repeat them here because instead I want to focus on the benefits of stopping right now.

A recent report by the Academy of Medical Sciences says the UK could see about 120,000 new coronavirus deaths in a second wave of infections this winter. Although there are no guarantees this will be right, it is clear we need to prepare. And if you are a smoker, one of the best things you could do is to quit.

You will have heard this before so why is now different?

Well now we’re seeing more evidence that smokers are being more badly affected by coronavirus than non-smokers.

Data from the Zoe Covid Symptom Tracker app, created by researchers at Guy’s and St Thomas’ hospitals and King’s College London, found that smokers are 14% more likely to develop coronavirus symptoms and more than twice as likely to be hospitalised.

So now, even more than ever, it is important to try and quit smoking, and if someone you love smokes, to help them to quit.

The good news is that there is a lot of support to help you. In our area you can contact our local stop smoking service Your Health Your Way. Their stop smoking advisors deliver a range of 1-1 and drop-in sessions as well as phone and digital support and work to help people understand why they smoke, manage cravings, and deal with relapses. You can find out more at https://yourhealthnotts.co.uk/stop-smoking/ or by calling 0115 772 2515 or emailing yourhealth.notts@nhs.net.

I know that quitting smoking is incredibly hard but trying to stop now will be better for you, your family and will reduce the pressure on the NHS this winter. All I ask is that you try.

Along with this and easing of lockdown, I would like to reiterate the importance of social distancing, hand-washing and wearing face masks as per guidance to avoid the spread of virus in our communities. We have done well in past few months and thank everyone for their contributions. We need to continue to stay alert to keep the virus under control.

As ever, please stay safe and if you have any questions check the official advice first at nhs.uk/coronavirus.

Population health management: Getting by with a little help from our friends!

Maria Principe, Nottinghamshire Integrated Care System population health management programme director.

Population health management (PHM) is the practice of segmenting and stratifying data to target interventions and reduce variation and health inequalities. That sounds complicated, right? You might think that the first thing we need to do is buy in a little help – that we don’t have the skills to do such detailed analytical work ourselves. Wrong!

Many NHS organisations already have data analysts and information specialists in their teams who are just waiting to take on the challenge of doing more with the data we collect. So when we decided to develop our own PHM programme in Nottingham and Nottinghamshire we didn’t call in the cavalry; we were it!

Little bundles of analytical gold

Creating and implementing our own PHM programme might sound like a scary thought, but it gave us the opportunity to have a look at what skills we already had that we could up-cycle. Remember those analysts you have in cupboards filling in spreadsheets and producing beautifully aligned red-amber-green reports? The ones you go to when you need to know how many, or how much? They are little bundles of analytical gold dust.

We quickly realised that we didn’t need consultants to do our PHM work; we just needed to dust off the layers of performance management responsibilities that have been weighing our analysts down and invite them into the conversation. By combining their skills and experience with expert clinical and transformational knowledge, we’ve got a match made in population health management heaven.
Once we stopped telling our analysts and information specialists what we wanted and started listening to what they said we actually needed, we began to have a different conversation and we found ourselves heading off in a better direction. But be prepared to eat a little humble pie because they’ve known all along that we could have been doing so much more.

It seems that along the way we’d been side-tracked by ticking boxes and missed the point. Our analysts have lived in that slightly scary sounding PHM world for a long time, they just called It analytical analysis or analytical modelling. Some of them actually trained in it!

Empowering the people we already had

People ask us how we developed our PHM programme, and the truth is, we used the people we already had, but we empowered them to act. We decided that maybe, as managers, we didn’t know better, and that someone who has waited in the wings, watching the trends and following the data for years could point us in the right direction.

In Nottingham and Nottinghamshire our managers, clinicians and analysts have worked together to produce a PHM methodology and with it a number of PHM profiles https://healthandcarenotts.co.uk/what-is-phm/

and while we’ve sought the advice and guidance of other specialist experts, for example the teams at Imperial College Health Partners and the Decision Support Unit we did the majority of the work ourselves.
I’m not saying organisations shouldn’t use consultants, because they can be great partners and we should always aspire to learn something new. The moment we assume to know it all is the moment we realise we know nothing. But before you put your hands in those very deep and fairly empty pockets, try opening the door to let in those trusted friends who have been by your side for a while – your data analysts.

There’s an old saying that you don’t know what you have until it’s gone. However, we didn’t lose our analytical skillset or experience; we’ve empowered and invited our data and information colleagues into the PHM conversation, and what a great decision that was.

Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Integrated Care System (ICS) supports Nottingham’s universities to drive local recovery with UK’s first Civic Agreement”

Nottingham’s two universities, together with the City and County’s Local Authorities, hospitals and Local Enterprise Partnership, have today launched the Universities for Nottingham Civic Agreement – the first of its kind in the country.

This first Civic Agreement, which announces more than a dozen initiatives that will take place over the coming year, harnesses the collective will of the City and County’s biggest institutions to deliver meaningful change for the people and place of Nottingham and Nottinghamshire.

The development of the agreement was accelerated in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and is focused on a number of measures, which will be delivered by the universities and the other signatories to help drive economic revival and protect jobs. For example, over the next three years, both universities will continue to work in collaboration with the D2N2 Local Enterprise Partnership, both Councils and other partners to deliver SME and enterprise programmes, which will now be aligned to local COVID-19 recovery plans to support more than 2,000 businesses and create over 1,000 new jobs.

Professor West added: “We are at a critical point in global history with our communities experiencing the devastating social and economic repercussions of the pandemic. Now, more than ever, we need to work together to drive local recovery and renewal.
“Today, we acknowledge the integral link between our universities and the city and county we are proud to call home. We are bound by a shared vision to enhance prosperity, opportunity, sustainability, health and wellbeing for current and future generations in our region.”

Professor Edward Peck, President and Vice-Chancellor of Nottingham Trent University, said: “We shared our ambition for collaboration across both universities and our partners at the launch of Universities for Nottingham in January. At the time we could not have envisaged just how essential that collaboration would be to helping our region recover from one of the toughest global economic and social crises it would face.
“Today’s Civic Agreement is the result of the universities and our partners pulling together to establish not just what we can achieve together, but how we will set about doing so as we help drive local recovery and strive to build back better.”

The inaugural Civic Agreement has been signed by both vice-chancellors and the leaders of six other major organisations in the city and county, including both local authorities and NHS organisations.
Across more than a dozen initiatives, it sets out a plan of collective action for the next year, covering five themes; Economic prosperity, Educational opportunity, Environmental sustainability, Health and wellbeing and Unlocking the universities.

Among the initiatives beginning immediately is joint work to ensure the safe and secure return of students to Nottingham from September and the development of a longer-term student living and regeneration strategy which both recognises the vital role they play in supporting businesses and jobs, as well as the importance of building stronger relationships between students and local residents. The universities have already been working closely with Public Health England and local public health officials to develop a nationally-commended Local Outbreak Plan with a strong focus on higher education. The Local Resilience Forum and both universities have also established a dedicated taskforce to support the safe return of students; looking at the role they play in the local economy, how to ensure positive community relations and how local partners and businesses can work together with the universities to offer a warm welcome in the autumn.

Councillor Kay Cutts MBE, Leader of Nottinghamshire County Council, said: “I’m proud that key organisations from across the whole of Nottinghamshire are coming together at this challenging time. This agreement will be instrumental in strengthening alliances and help to make Nottinghamshire an even better place to live, work, learn and invest. Our two world-class universities are key to developing the innovation, skills and talent needed to support the local economy, which is more important than ever.”

Councillor David Mellen, Leader of Nottingham City Council, said: “This civic agreement recognises that the two universities play a valuable role in our city life, culturally, economically and socially. Students from across the country come to Nottingham and add to our vibrant and diverse communities, many of whom stay here and then contribute further to the city. The Universities for Nottingham initiative recognises the challenges we face in the city and that by coming together with the city council and other partners, we can all work together to improve the sustainability, health and economy of the city. I welcome this contribution to the city and look forward to making real strides for Nottingham people together.”

The universities will also explore a range of pioneering activities to boost educational opportunities locally, such as deploying primary and secondary trainee teachers to support students disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 crisis.

Health remains a key focus for the universities as they pledge to develop a major new joint medical technology offer to business, with an ambition to make Nottingham and Nottinghamshire a leading destination in which to invest or establish new businesses in health and life sciences. This builds on the collaboration between the universities on the Medical Technologies Innovation Facility project which focuses on the development of innovative products to meet future healthcare needs.

Richard Mitchell, Chief Executive of Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS FT said: “We are fortunate to have two strong Universities in Nottingham and Nottinghamshire and we welcome the opportunity to work closely with them and other organisations. We recognise the future is uncertain and will at times feel volatile, but we believe a shared mission to improve economic prosperity, educational opportunity, environmental sustainability, health and wellbeing and the unlocking of our universities and other organisations will enable us to help our patients, citizens and residents thrive. Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS FT is excited to be involved.”

Tracy Taylor, Chief Executive, Nottingham University Hospitals said: “Our links with the universities in our city are longstanding, from helping to train student doctors and nurses to carrying out ground-breaking research that transforms lives. Our clinicians, NHS professionals and patients work with students and staff to drive continuous improvements in the region’s health and care systems. We’re delighted to be part of this civic agreement, further strengthening our relationship and recognising the pivotal role healthcare organisations can play in helping to improve economic prosperity and social wellbeing.”

The programme also details how the universities will explore the development of a joint programme of training and support to meet clinical skills needs in the local healthcare system.

Dr Andy Haynes, Executive Lead at Nottingham and Nottinghamshire ICS, said: “We are very excited to be involved in the Universities for Nottingham Civic Agreement which we hope will drive forward the future of the city in the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic. We are very lucky as a city to have two world-class universities and we are delighted to be able to work together alongside both universities and other organisations to deliver meaningful change for Nottingham and Nottinghamshire. Working together across the city and county is more important than ever before and we are grateful that the fundamental role healthcare can play in helping to improve economic and social wellbeing has been recognised.”

As part of their commitment to help local partners more easily unlock access to talent across both universities, next year all student enterprise challenges and competitions will be immediately refocused to directly support local COVID-19 recovery. The universities are committed to working together to develop a more coordinated and collaborative approach to this type of work for the benefit of Nottingham and Nottinghamshire. For example, students and staff from both universities and the Civic Agreement’s co-signatories will be taking part in the University of Nottingham’s flagship student enterprise programme, Ingenuity, which will kick-off its 2020/21 programme over the summer before launching in September. Using the themes of the Universities for Nottingham Civic Agreement as its key challenges, organisations and students from across the region will come together to develop ideas for new businesses, innovations and social enterprises that will help solve them. Over 300 ideas are expected to be generated by over 1,000 participants – leading to an investment of over £400,000 of support for the most scalable businesses.

Meanwhile, NTU’s Grads4Nottingham and Thinkubator schemes will be engaging with hundreds of employers each year to address their challenges, using student, graduate and academic expertise to resolve them. Separately, more than 12,000 students now engage with the Hive student and graduate incubator each year, aiming to learn more about the ways they can bring the solutions to societal challenges to commercial life.

David Williams, Interim Chair of D2N2 Local Enterprise Partnership, a co-signatory on the Civic Agreement, said: “D2N2 is delighted to be involved in this unique partnership to improve the lives of local people and shape Nottingham and Nottinghamshire. This pioneering Agreement will be vital in our collective efforts to address the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, support local recovery and help rebuild stronger communities. We are committed to working in collaboration with the Universities for Nottingham, alongside other local partners, across the themes of this Agreement to unlock our region’s potential, grow our economy and help our local communities to thrive.”

The signing of today’s Civic Agreement, done electronically due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, marks the start of work on 14 initiatives which create the Universities for Nottingham’s plan of action for the first year. The agreement and all 14 initiatives can be found on the Universities for Nottingham website.

Nottingham City ICP: A blog by Hugh Porter

Since Ian Curryer, Chief Executive of Nottingham City Council and ICP Lead left us for pastures new at the end of April, I’ve been honoured to act as interim City ICP lead in addition to my role as ICP Clinical Director. I feel privileged to be stepping into this role even if only for a short period, but it also feels exciting as we move out of lockdown and consider what the ICP can offer to our City in the ‘new normal’.

As we move into restoration and recovery, the ‘next phase’ of the Covid pandemic, I have taken a moment to reflect upon the extensive work everyone involved in Nottingham City ICP has been undertaking. While the past few months have been challenging for everyone, across the Nottingham City ICP we have pulled together like never before. Our response to Covid has proven what is possible when a group of organisations have a shared purpose and set of objectives. and I am so proud to be a part of that.

Now it’s time for us to collectively build on the positive changes we have implemented. I’m excited for us to share the vision of Nottingham City ICP and work to maximise the opportunities that lay ahead of us.

Setting our priorities

Before the pandemic we, the Nottingham City ICP partners, were close to defining our priorities and key programmes of work for the coming year. However, the needs of our citizens have been, and will continue to be, impacted in different ways by Covid. Therefore, for us to continue to add value and maximise the impact on our population’s health and wellbeing, it has been important for us, to review our priorities and ensure they support the wider restore and recover agenda across Nottinghamshire.

Having completed this review, our priorities are to:

Support people who face multiple disadvantages to live longer and healthier lives
Better prepare children and young people to leave care and live independently
Reduce smoking prevalence by supporting those who smoke or who are at risk of smoking
Increase the number of people receiving flu vaccinations
Reduce inequalities in health outcomes in BAME communities
Develop the Integrated Care Partnership and establish the ICP culture

Building our programmes

Each priority has a dedicated programme lead, executive sponsor, and key partners. The project teams are developing delivery plans for each programme and will report into the ICP Programme Steering Group, which meets monthly. In addition, the ICP Forum – which is mainly attended by councillors and non-executives – provides further challenge and assurance.

Successes to date

The Government’s ‘Everyone In’ scheme, to house rough sleepers in hotels during lockdown, provided the perfect opportunity for us to explore new ways of working for the benefit of these vulnerable citizens. Bringing together partners we designed a wraparound model to create a support network building on the good work of the City Council’s Housing Aid service and found long term accommodation and associated support to 36 rough sleepers across the city.

We championed the development of Clinical Management Centres (CMCs) and a Covid Home Visiting Service, where GPs could safely see patients with possible Covid symptoms. In this way, 745 people with suspected Covid were seen, face-to-face, for an assessment in a CMC or by a GP in their own home.

We have worked with our Primary Care Networks to create a central hub for ongoing care of patients with suspected Covid and developed a service to help get people with no transport into the city centre so they don’t have to use public transport.

CityCare have been supporting care homes, providing training and support around testing and PPE.

You may already know that Nottingham City ICP has taken the plunge and is now on Twitter, where we’re showing off our new logo… Give us a follow @Nottmcityicp to keep informed of our latest developments.

You can also find out more about our partnership and how to contact the ICP team here

I look forward to keeping you all up to date as we progress with our priorities.

Dr Hugh Porter.

Clinical Director and Interim Lead – Nottingham City Integrated Care Partnership

Blog 10- Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging

Dr Sonali Kinra is our ICS lead for GP Retention. This is her monthly blog series where she gives an insight into her role and more.

I have tried to keep to monthly blogs since I began in my role as GP retention lead for Nottingham and Nottinghamshire in September 2019. This blog is later than usual in the month. This was as a result of me finally managing to take annual leave after 6 months. I hope you have planned some time off too during the summer to pause, breath and rejuvenate yourself.

Some of our GP trainees would’ve received their RCA results recently. For those of you who are due to complete their final few weeks of training and enter into the new world of independent General practitioner- please ensure you are linked in with Phoenix programme and Nottingham Alliance training hub who are collaborating to deliver the New to Practice Programme. The programme is for GPs and GPNs.

NHSE& I have also released details around New to Partnership scheme. If you wish to discuss the benefits of partnership please feel free to contact Phoenix Programme or Nottinghamshire LMC. We are also in the process of pulling together a programme for non-clinical partnership/business skills. Watch this space. The eligible list of professionals who can apply to the scheme is: General Practitioner, Nurse (including ANP), Pharmacist, Pharmacy Technician, Physiotherapist, Paramedic, Midwife, Dietitian, Podiatrist, Occupational Therapist, Mental Health Practitioner. NHSE also informs us that they are reviewing to include our well deserving Practice Managers- we will keep raising this.

We held our first virtual AiT trainee transition conference along with our colleagues from Phoenix Programme, RCGP Vale of Trent faculty and Derbyshire GP Taskforce earlier in the month. Seeing the feedback on social media it was very well received. You can view it here if you missed it.

I chaired the Primary Care workforce group meeting in the last week of the June followed by attending the Primary Care Transformation Group. The transformation group has representation across the system from federations, locality and Clinical directors. We continue to engage in informed discussions around funding plans and initiatives for 20/21 pending further financial information from the treasury and NHSE. I appreciate this can be frustrating but this hasn’t stopped us and we continue to fine tune our funding framework to ensure equitable allocation of funds based on need and must do’s from NHSE and HEE. We will soon be piloting our PCN portfolio roles and are adding our final touches on GPN leadership programme and hope to get out expression of interest forms out to you soon.

Health Education England (HEE) has released a video on training hub explaining what they do. Our local training hub is Nottinghamshire Alliance of training hub(NATH) . They have been engaging recently with General Practice and PCNs for training need analysis for nurses and AHPs to assess and provide future training and CPD opportunities.

Hussain Ghandi and Andy Foster are hosting an NHS ‘Digital First’ Providers Guide. Dr Gandhi and Dr Minal Bakhai (Deputy Director and National Clinical Lead for Digital First Primary care NHSE/I) will speak with representatives from AccuRx, AskMyGP, eConsult, Engage Consult, Klinik and TPP SystmOne about their digital-first offerings for primary care. This virtual event takes place on 29 July at 12.30. They are also hosting a System One User Conference on the 24th July. You can find all the information you need about the conference here.

Dr Jasjit Kaur Atwal (GP working in Nottingham City) has been working tirelessly behind the scenes for the last 2 years increasing the profile and discussion around Gender and Ethnicity pay gap. Pending the imminent release of the Gender Pay Gap in Medicine review, commissioned by DHSC , she has now set up a formal space on MS teams for share insights into lived experiences of pay gaps ,exploring impact of intersectionality and bring these to experts in field of NHS pay gaps to offer evidence and experience based solutions. General practice perspective is unique and with a sizeable pay gap. If you are interested in engaging in this crucial topic then please email Jasjit.atwal@nhs.net

Robana Hussain Mills alongwith Aquline Chivinge have established a forum for nurses and midwives from Black, Asian and minority ethnic background (BAME)for primary and secondary care. If you wish to join in please email robana.hussain-mills@nhs.net

I found this reflective blog on racism and meaningful actions by Dr Mariya Aziz & Dr Tom Ratcliffe particularly helpful with useful resources to further raise awareness. A few of us have recently come together to set up Notts Primary Care working group for Racial Equality, Diversity and Inclusion. There is now a formal space on MS teams to learn together, raise awareness and shape the working group to address various strands of structural inequalities around leadership opportunities, differential attainment and health inequalities. If you are interested in joining in the conversation then please get in touch with me via email Sonali.kinra@nhs.net.

Diversity is having a seat at the table, inclusion is having a voice and Belonging is having that voice to be heard.

Until Next time
Sonali
@SonaliKinra

More than 30 rough sleepers rehomed in pioneering scheme to support homeless in Nottingham

Rough sleepers in Nottingham have been given access to permanent accommodation and a new innovative system of support following the outbreak of the Coronavirus.

In March the Government launched the ‘Everyone In’ scheme to help get rough sleepers off the streets and into temporary accommodation during lockdown. Following a direct request from Government, Nottingham City Council worked with partners to respond quickly – and supported more than 180 rough sleepers in two hotels in the city.

Partners in the city, including Nottingham City Council, Framework, Emmanuel House, CityCare, Opportunity Nottingham, GPs, the Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust and various groups of dedicated volunteers* worked together to provide around the clock care and support to people staying in the hotels.

Dr Stephen Willott, GP from the Windmill Practice said: “We saw improvements almost immediately. People engaged positively with the services and we were able to provide dedicated support to everyone as we knew where they were staying at all times. The Homeless Health Team were able to visit daily, GPs were able to offer consultations by video and were on call 24 hours a day if a face-to-face assessment was needed. The Nottingham Recovery Network also visited daily, offering drug and alcohol help and advice and a mental health clinic was set up at one of the hotels, enabling people to receive assessments for their mental health. This meant community psychiatric nurses were able to see people they had not been in contact with before.”

The majority of the rough sleepers have been supported to move on with Nottingham City Council’s Housing Aid team working with partners to re-home those who were in temporary accommodation. So far long-term accommodation has been found for 36 people, who, prior to the pandemic, were sleeping rough.

Following on from the positive work of the ‘Everyone In’ scheme, the Nottingham City Integrated Care Partnership** (ICP) is working together with local partners including Emmanuel House to continue on the positive work achieved during Coronavirus with a new service of care and support so that the work achieved throughout the pandemic can continue.

Dr Hugh Porter, Clinical Director and Interim Lead – Nottingham City Integrated Care Partnership said: “The aim of this work is to make sure that even when someone is provided with a home, they don’t lose contact with the services that can help to settle them into their new home and provide on-going physical and mental health care”.

Councillor Linda Woodings, Portfolio Holder for Planning, Housing and Heritage at Nottingham City Council said: “This approach is different to anything that had been tried before. We have looked at our services and worked together to overcome the barriers that are so often in place and create a new wrap-around support system to support rough sleepers and those that are now in accommodation. We don’t want to stop at getting people into accommodation; we want to provide support to the individuals following that too.”

* Charities including Guru Nanak’s Mission, S.A.F.E, Blind Eye, The British Red Cross, Walkers Notts and Everybody Matters supported rough sleepers by delivering meals to the hotels.
**The Nottingham City ICP brings together all partners who can influence health and wellbeing. That means being wider than a traditional health partnership and involving people working in housing, the voluntary sector, crime and safety and more.

Nottinghamshire’s ‘United Nations of Analytics’

Nottinghamshire Integrated Care System’s Population Health Management (PHM) Programme Director, Maria Principe, and Executive Lead, Andy Haynes, discuss how bringing together the skills of data analysts from across the county is helping individual partners to see the wider health and care picture.

Necessity may be the mother of invention, but it’s also a driver to implement existing good ideas at speed. In Nottinghamshire, the integrated care system (ICS) partners had already been considering the idea of a core analytics function or data cell, and Covid-19 provided a real world moment in time when such a resource was truly needed.

The arrival of the pandemic helped all the partners to see the power of what such a team could achieve, and we went ahead to create a ‘United Nations of Analytics’, linking the skills of data analysts across all our local organisations. The aim was to pool the talent available to us and create data analysis that not only helps individual organisations, but also brings together data in a meaningful way across patient and citizen pathways.

Analysing the local Covid-19 response

The work of the data cell is designed to inform decision-making, with no agenda other than to understand what the data says. The initial questions addressed included whether the area has enough ventilator beds, its mortuary capacity, mental health capacity, and the future impact of the pandemic on the frail.

The team also carried out modelling for care homes and discharges, which meant engaging with care homes as well as hospitals. This gave social care teams at Nottinghamshire County Council the confidence to know that the additional arrangements they had put in place were suitable to cope with the number of people needing support. This expanded the remit to include areas such as social care, followed by work on the expected mental health impact of the pandemic and lockdown.

The remit is developing as time moves on, from assessing the immediate crisis to planning for recovery. The conversation has developed along with the maturity of the data cell, as people become more confident in its output.

Key to this has been the development of the regular Covid-19 briefing, shared with all partners, which includes information on local deaths and excess deaths, including at a district/borough level, mobility reports, NHS 111 data, local demand on ambulance services, Nottingham and Nottinghamshire’s R numbers and prevalence of Covid-19. The briefing has increased confidence across the partners because the data is accurate – we have checked the model against real world data, adjusted for local data as we go, and made sure we communicate the data in ways that reflects reality.

Working with partners

Organisations such as Experian, universities and research teams have been involved in data collation nationally, and we have also started conversations with a number about how we can boost our work locally.

We are now working with Experian as well as the two Nottingham universities on mental health. For example, Experian is looking at the impact on the population of mental health issues arising from the pandemic. We realise that everyone is impacted at some level, and Experian’s data will help highlight the families on the breadline who may, for example, be furloughed and then made redundant, which will cause greater anxiety and add to inequalities. This kind of information is crucial to help local authorities judge their response to people’s needs.

The data cell team has also been working across partners through the wave of the virus – the impact on acute care, intensive care units and general beds, through to the community, care homes and GPs.

Future planning

As the ICS starts planning the recovery phase, the data cell will help us better address health inequalities, and provide a greater understanding of the shared agenda. This will galvanise how we take forward work on the wider determinants of health. Click here to read our top tips for population health management.

Instead of each organisation carrying out its own analysis, partners can now come together to share information and data along a pathway, with analysis and reporting that is trusted across multiple organisations. Where individual analysts were previously siloed due to organisational boundaries, they are now working together in an agile way and their analysis is being used to drive decision-making within the system.

We have some really capable analysts working in the NHS, who have worked with others such as the experts at Imperial College Health Partners (ICHP) and have really held their own. This new focus on data analytics has empowered and encouraged our teams. The time pressure inherent in a pandemic response has also allowed them to show their true worth, providing data analysis that is current and reflects the real world situation.

In the beginning there was a certain level of willingness across partners to go ahead with a linked data cell, but its value has been proven beyond doubt in recent times. In Nottinghamshire we already had the benefit of eHealthscope and our ‘GP Repository for Clinical Care’, which pulls together primary, community, secondary and social care data and which all our GPs are signed up to (click here to find out more). The new team is using this data set to accelerate work and remove boundaries – while the individuals in the team of around a dozen analysts are still employed by their individual organisations, they now also work on projects that have a system benefit.

By continually asking ourselves what the data means, and how it helps, we support all the partners to understand the analysis and to make decisions based on a real world picture across the system, working as one.

Notts NHS creates video to say thank you on its 72nd birthday

As the NHS celebrates its 72nd birthday, the local health and care community has created a special video to thank those who have helped throughout the Coronavirus pandemic.
On 5 July 2020, it will be 72 years since the NHS was established in the UK and 2020 has been the most challenging year in its history.

Health and care staff across Nottingham and Nottinghamshire have used the milestone to share their appreciation for volunteers and key workers who have helped to keep our city and county running throughout the pandemic.
The video features doctors, nurses, paramedics and members of staff from across the Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Integrated Care System.

Amanda Sullivan, Accountable Officer at NHS Nottingham and Nottinghamshire CCG, said: “On the 72nd anniversary of the NHS it is more important than ever to say thank you to those who have helped us over the last few months.

“We are taking a moment to thank individuals and organisations around the country who have helped us respond to this global pandemic – from bus drivers and refuse collectors to care givers and shop workers. And the public too, who have embraced the lockdown measures to help protect the NHS and their communities.

“We have worked across the system together to support the people of Nottinghamshire but it would not have been possible without the selfless help and support from volunteers and key workers.

“This year, the birthday is also an opportunity to recognise the skills, commitment, achievements, compassion and diversity of our staff while also thanking the former doctors, nurses and other health service staff who came out of retirement to battle coronavirus.”

Volunteers from across the city and county have been helping to deliver PPE, medicine and food to the public since the pandemic began. Some local businesses even helped to make visors, masks and other essential supplies for NHS frontline workers.
Charities and organisations that have helped to distribute PPE include:

Acorn Occupational Health Ltd
Airport Bearing Company Limited (ABCO)
Proskins
Uvex Safety Ltd
Nottinghamshire Search and Rescue
University of Nottingham
Matsuura Machinery
10to8.com
Nottinghamshire Blood Bikes
Mapperley Rotary Club
Integral
Operation RE:ACT
British Red Cross

Information for those who have been self isolating is this week’s focus by ICP Clinical Lead Thilan Bartholomeuz

If you are one of the 2.2m people across the country that has been self isolating since the start of the pandemic, there were some key changes announced for you that I thought that it would be useful to discuss.

From 6 July, you will be able to meet up outdoors with up to five others and form ‘support bubbles’ with other households while keeping to social distancing.

And then from 1 August you will not have to self isolate at all and so will be able to have more freedom to visit shops or places of worship if you wish.

The change has been made as the rate of the coronavirus has dropped from 1 in 500 people four weeks ago to on average less than 1 in 1,700 people in our communities now.

I realise that for some of you while this may be welcome you may have some concerns about going out after so long isolating. Because of this, there will still be support in place for you such as being able to have priority for supermarket delivery slots, and can getting help with shopping, medication, phone calls and transport to medical appointments through the NHS volunteers’ scheme if you feel you still need it.

And it is important to remember that while this again is a positive step, you should still continue to follow strict social distancing measures after 1 August. This means minimising contact with people you don’t live with and frequently washing your hands. If you are working you should also continue to work from home if you can. If you cannot and feel worried about returning to work, the government has asked employers to work with those who have been shielded to look at what measures can be put in place to ease you back into work.

The government has said it will be writing to all individuals on the Shielded Patient List soon with updated information on shielding advice and the ongoing support that will be available to them but I hope this has helped too.

Please stay safe and if you have any questions check the official advice first at nhs.uk/coronavirus.