Frome Medical Practice, together with the staff from Health Connections Mendip, won the prestigious Practice of The Year Award At an awards ceremony held in Bridgwater last week.
The 2017 competition was organised by the Somerset Clinical Commissioning Group within the NHS.
The award went to the practice and Health Connections for the work that they have been doing jointly with adult social care, particularly in ensuring that an adult social care worker is based at the practice every Friday.
Jenny Hartnoll is the service lead at Health Connections Mendip which is located at the Frome Medical Practice.
“This award is a big honour and reflects the work that many people have put into this to make it work,” says Jenny. “By ensuring that we now have on site, here in Frome, an adult social care worker who attends weekly multi-disciplinary team meetings as well as seeing patients every Friday, we have managed to make a difference, particularly to vulnerable patients.
“There has always been a slight disconnect between adult social care and the medical profession, with neither group of professionals perhaps fully understanding the other. However, we now have a system where we have a far more joined-up approach to support patients who are being discharged from hospital, at risk of an admission or facing a deterioration in their health and wellbeing.”
“The adult social care worker is also able to provide support for other teams located in the same building as the Frome Medical Practice,” adds Jenny. “This includes working with the mental health team, district nurses and staff from the local hospice at Dorothy House.”
In being nominated for the award, the Frome Medical Practice was praised for its championing of multi-disciplinary hub working, discharge from hospital liaison and many other innovations particularly at a time of workforce and financial pressures.
The practice is also the only area within Somerset that managed a reduction in emergency admissions.
Dr Helen Kingston, the senior partner at the practice, said, “On behalf of all of our staff I am thrilled at the recognition being given to the practice. GPs, nurses and other practice professionals have undertaken training to ensure that we have a better understanding of how adult social care works.
“There has been recent media focus on the difficulties of discharging patients from hospital who cannot live independently.
“At least we now have in place in Frome a system whereby patients are discharged from hospital supported with joint social care and primary care plans. We are also able to speed up access to help those at risk of admission.”
Following on from the success of this project in Frome, work is now taking place with adult social care on developing hubs in both central and western Mendip with a similar model, enabling social care practitioners to work alongside medical professionals.
