The Princess Royal launches new mental health therapy group in Broxtowe

Her Royal Highness, The Princess Royal, visited Plumptre Hall in Eastwood today to learn about ‘invaluable’ new services from mental health occupational therapists who help residents improve their mental health.

Her Royal Highness is the Patron of the Royal College of Occupational Therapists and made a special visit to Nottingham to learn more about the positive impact of the new service during a special event jointly hosted by Nottingham West Primary Care Network and the Royal College of Occupational Therapists.

People living in Nottinghamshire can now access support from mental health professionals without a referral from a GP. Mental health occupational therapists are clinically trained and work with people of all ages to find holistic personalised, practical solutions to everyday challenges.

In Nottinghamshire, mental health occupational therapists work from general practice surgeries and get involved with local community groups to identify and address mental health needs early on. This new service is available across Mid and South Nottinghamshire to residents registered with a GP surgery in Hucknall, Gedling, Broxtowe, Mansfield Town and South Mansfield, and North Ashfield.

Catherine Seals, Mental Health Occupational Therapist for Nottingham West Primary Care Network, invited The Princess Royal to launch a new group-therapy choice for residents that promotes conversations about mental health and offers practical, personalised steps to help keep well.

Residents of Broxtowe met with Her Royal Highness and talked about using the service to manage their daily routines and achieve personal goals. Paul Cooke, 36, a father of three from Giltbrook and engineer at Rolls Royce, described his experience of therapy with a mental health occupational therapist as “a breath of fresh air” and explained how working with Catherine “helped me align more to my old self.”

The Princess Royal heard how mental health occupational therapists focus on how mental health may be affecting a person’s daily life, help people identify their goals and break down barriers to achieving them.

Local health care staff invited Her Royal Highness to explore the different techniques used to empower patients to manage anxiety and mood, regulate emotions, develop motivation and interest levels, and renew their interest in hobbies and important roles within life.

Sir John Peace, Lord Lieutenant of Nottinghamshire was part of a group of local dignitaries, who, together with representatives from the Royal College of Occupational Therapists and NHS Nottingham leaders, saw for themselves how occupational therapists design services that improve care within communities.

Nottingham West supports a collaboration of 12 GP surgeries within Broxtowe, and was one of the first Primary Care Networks in the country to employ mental health occupational therapists. Nottinghamshire leads the way in creating new services within primary care due to an effective partnership between 11 Primary Care Networks, including Nottingham West, and Primary Integrated Community Services (PICS), a local healthcare organisation run by GPs.

Find out more about the different roles in general practice.

Find out how the mental health occupational therapy role works.

Monthly shout-out: Respiratory Nursing Team

Congratulations to the community respiratory nurses from Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust for their work to support people with learning disabilities who have COPD.

The team identified that specific patient groups were facing barriers to receiving information for them to self-manage their COPD. Lead nurse Hiedi Swift and Learning Disability Nurse Sarah Atkinson have worked with the respiratory nursing team to develop a COPD action plan for patients with learning disabilities.

The plan was adapted to make it more pictorial to allow patients to interpret it more easily. This will help them to identify problems earlier and reduce the chance of hospital admission and GP contact.

The COPD self-management plan is coloured so patients with Autism can use it more easily and read it with comfort. The inside of the plan retains the traffic light system as most patients can follow this. The biggest change has been the actions, which have been changed from written directions to pictures. The correct inhaler technique is also being added into photographs for the patients to check they are using their inhalers correctly.

Hiedi Swift, lead nurse for the project, said: “We wanted to ensure that all patients from all socio-economic backgrounds had the information they needed to help manage their COPD. Patients in the Mansfield area have varying barriers to communications, which can include poor literacy. By adapting the information for different groups, we can help prevent ill health for everyone who is affected by this long-term condition.”

The COPD learning disability plan is the first one developed in the UK.

Personal finance and credit score workshops for health and care staff

Experian, the global information services company, has announced an extension to its partnership with health and care organisations in Nottingham and Nottinghamshire. Together they have created a unique series of face-to-face and online workshops for employees on how to manage their finances amidst continued challenging times.

Working specifically with Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Integrated Care System (ICS), a partnership between the county’s NHS and care organisations to support health and wellbeing, five “Money Clinics” and a number of online webinars will take place over the next two months. These clinics are open to any of the 71,000 staff to attend and will provide insights, support and guidance on personal finances and credit scores.

Expert teams from Experian and Citizens Advice Nottingham will be on hand to answer questions on a range of topics including how to successfully build a credit score, applying for credit, budgeting, managing debt and claiming benefits. In addition, staff have the opportunity to arrange one-on-one sessions to discuss any topics related to improving their financial health.

This Experian programme forms part of a broader support package offered to staff via The East Midlands Hub Winter Wellbeing Support which can be accessed here.

These workshops are an extension to the partnership between Experian and Nottingham and Nottinghamshire ICS. A pilot programme with Nottingham University Hospitals took place last year with over 250 NHS staff attending two “Money Clinics” and five “credit workshops”.

Steve Thomas, Managing Director, Strategy & Innovation, Experian UK&I, said: “Being able to provide face-to-face sessions, and webinars, to NHS and care workers, is part of Experian’s ongoing commitment to improving financial health in the UK. NHS and care workers provide us all with vital support, so it’s great to be able to help them in return.

“We believe that guiding staff on personal finance topics like credit scores, building credit for the first time, or getting help with debt, can help people stay in control of their money. This means they’re more likely to be able to get credit in the future, at times they really need it.”

Philippa Hunt, Chief People Officer at NHS Nottingham and Nottinghamshire, said: “With the current cost of living continuing to affect us all in different ways, we know financial management can cause feelings of stress and anxiety. We are very grateful to Experian for hosting the clinics and we hope as many health and care colleagues as possible engage with the sessions to gain advice and support. Building on previous events, Experian are a valued partner to help with money management and financial wellbeing.”

Simon Mee, General Advice Service Manager from Citizens Advice Nottingham said: “Citizens Advice Nottingham & District provide free, confidential, and impartial advice and campaign on big issues affecting people’s lives. Our goal is to help everyone find a way forward, whatever problem they face.”

Find out more about Experian

Monthly shout-out: Sandra Morrell

Sandra Morrell, Designated Nurse for Safeguarding Children at NHS Nottingham and Nottinghamshire, is the winner of our shout-out this month after she was awarded a ‘Safeguarding Star’ by NHS England. This award acknowledges Sandra’s wide contribution across the Midlands region, especially her work around report writing training.

Joanne Harrison, Assistant Director for Safeguarding NHS England – Midlands, said: “The impact of your leadership supports and inspires colleagues that you connect with in their professional practice. You have been a great support to our regional team in our strategic approach over the years.”

Organisation leaders commit to joint working

The leaders of health, care, local authority, voluntary and community sector organisations have signed up to work together for the benefit of Nottingham and Nottinghamshire people.

A wide range of organisations have signed the ‘Integrated Care System Partnership Agreement’ which pledges a commitment to work together with a shared purpose of ‘every person enjoying their best possible health and wellbeing’.

Dr Kathy McLean, Chair of the Integrated Care Partnership, said: “We know that good health and wellbeing is of immense importance to everyone. We recognise that each person’s health doesn’t begin and end with single organisations. Health may be affected by many different things, such as the quality of housing, job or training prospects or access to healthy food. This Partnership Agreement signals that organisations are committed to working and planning together across organisational boundaries to make changes which can support individuals to reach the goal of ‘every person enjoying their best possible health and wellbeing’.

“Leaders have also pledged to listen to the experience and aspirations of local people and communities and act on these together. Having this collective commitment will ultimately help to improve the health and wellbeing of our local people.”

The full list of organisations and signatures can be viewed on the Integrated Care System Partnership Agreement.

Dr Kathy McLean elected as incoming Chair of the NHS Confederation’s Integrated Care System Network Board

Dr Kathy McLean has been elected as chair of the NHS Confederation ICS Network from April 2024. The Network supports leaders to exchange ideas, share experiences and challenges and influence the national agenda on key issues such as social care reform and elective recovery.

Dr McLean is also Chair of Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Integrated Care Board and University Hospitals Derby and Burton.

Dr McLean said: “I am delighted to have been elected to the role of Chair of the ICS Network. It is a critical time for systems, and it will be important to help health and care leaders work together to share best practice, challenge each other and influence the national agenda.

I’m looking forward to taking on this exciting new role and driving forward the integration agenda.”

Find out more: https://www.nhsconfed.org/news/new-chair-ics-network-announced

Monthly shout-out: Gedling Falls Programme

This month’s ICS shout-out goes to the Gedling Falls Programme for work to establish falls prevention classes in the area.

The classes were set up after the coproduction partnership identified a gap in falls prevention services in Gedling. A project group was set-up with representatives from Gedling Borough Council, the Primary Care Network, Active Notts and a postural stability instructor, who worked in an integrated and collaborative way to use Ageing Well seed funding to set up three falls prevention classes in the community, aiming to improve the physical and mental health of Gedling residents in identified areas of health inequality.

70% of people attending the classes reported an increase in their strength and balance and 97% increased knowledge of how to get up from the floor on their own. Feedback shows they have been empowered to lead a more independent life, become more socially active and have not needed social care.

Fiona Hextall, Health Development Officer at Gedling Borough Council, said: “Falls have a huge impact on people who can lose mobility and the confidence to live independently, often ending up needing hospital and social care. We worked with a number of agencies to set up falls prevention classes in Gedling after feedback from the community showed there was a gap in these services in the area.

“The classes have been well attended and have now continued past the pilot period. The strength balance and social confidence of the attendees is improving, helping to reduce health and social care costs.”

A physiotherapist from Nottinghamshire Healthcare Trust said: “The classes are very helpful to our therapy service. Some patients are being directed straight from telephone triage and are attending a class much faster than we could hope to see routine falls referrals.”

Well done to everyone involved!

Insights into our local communities

A new Insight Report has been published which brings together intelligence gathered from listening to our communities across the Integrated Care System.

The report, which was presented to the Integrated Care Partnership in October, provides a summary of the activities and findings from engagement work across the system. This includes engagement work to develop the Integrated Care Strategy, insights from our Partners Assemblies and the business-as-usual engagement carried out by all system partners.

The report will support the work of the Integrated Care Strategy to help meet the needs of our communities.

Some of the insights include:

The population of Nottingham and Nottinghamshire in 2021 is larger, older, less likely to be in a legal relationship and less white than 10 years ago.

Our population generally support a shift to prevention and an approach centred in equity – but for both of these changes they are sceptical about how this can be achieved while protecting existing services.

Improving support for older individuals includes collaborating across agencies, enhancing access to various services, reducing isolation and addressing transportation issues, while improving digital literacy and innovation in dementia care.

For children young people and families, there needs to be more support provided around breastfeeding together with services being more co-ordinated and promoted to understand what people can access and when. Additionally, there should be more support for children with special educational needs and disabilities.

The experiences of racial minority groups, especially within Nottingham City, in accessing health and care services is multi-faceted and complex and requires dedicated attention to improve.

The report makes a number of recommendations which will now be considered by the Integrated Care Strategy Steering Group. The report will also feed into the development of an Evaluation Framework that will help us measure the impact of our Strategy.

Read the Insights Report

Community Care Transformation podcast

The Community Care Transformation programme aims to plan and deliver sustainable community care services that help local people be as independent as possible by supporting their physical, mental and social needs. The programme involves people from health, care, the voluntary sector and local communities who work together to introduce ‘place-based’ community teams which use population health data to drive services based on local needs. These see all the partners working together better and linking with other community organisations such as charities to support local people in improving their own health outcomes.

Dr Kathy McLean (Chair of the Integrated Care Board) chats to Steven Smith (Programme Manager for Community Transformation at the ICB), Pam Rumbell (Organisational Development Lead for Community Transformation at the ICB), Vicky Gutteridge (Senior Strategic Director at Age UK Nottingham and Nottinghamshire) and Louise Casey-Simpson (Deputy Chief Executive of Newark CVS) about the impact of the Community Care Transformation Programme in Nottingham and Nottinghamshire.