Chief Executive, Maz Fosh talks about the Lincolnshire 100 day stroke services challenge
Posted on: 27th January 2020
The start of 2020 has seen the Lincolnshire stroke services 100 day challenge reach 100 days. You may recall me writing about the launch last summer.
Patients, the Stroke Association, Lincolnshire Community Health Services NHS Trust (LCHS), United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust and Lincolnshire County Council are working together to improve care for stroke patients.
100 day challenges are intensive periods of action and collaboration where practitioners and stakeholders set ambitious goals, and develop and test solutions in real conditions.
The teams are working to improve stroke patients’ experience from leaving hospital to care at home, which includes reducing the length of hospital stay and enabling people to live well in their communities.
People working on reducing the length of hospital stay identified numerous reasons that led to a delayed discharge. However, through improving sharing of information, access to systems and identifying patients’ needs sooner, such as equipment for use at home, the team reduced the average length of stay on the Stroke Unit at Lincoln County Hospital from 11 days in 2018 to seven days in 2019. Work will continue in this area on other ways to further reduce the length of hospital stay.
The team that is helping patients to live well in their communities after surviving a stroke developed The Lincolnshire Stroke Services YouTube channel with patients and clinicians to provide a range of additional support, including exercise demonstrations, information on healthy living and preventing further strokes.
As a result of patient feedback: videos include adapting everyday tasks following a stroke, such as how to make a cup of tea with one hand. The team will continue to develop this site and promote the channel to patients.
The team exploring ways to create a seamless patient experience through the stages of care and recovery, increased staff knowledge on services that patients and families access as part of their journey and developed a patient handbook for sharing information and reducing duplication as patients move through services as they recover.
The challenge has yielded some great results in improving care for stroke patients and shown that working collaboratively can really make a difference.
The 100 day challenge created a valuable opportunity for health and care professionals from across Lincolnshire to come together and from talking to staff; the end of this challenge is just the beginning of improvements for stroke patient care, the work will continue.