Quality
Quality of Life improvements
One of Connect Health’s values is to demonstrate quality in all that we do. Nowhere is this more important than when we consider clinical quality, helping people achieve excellent outcomes when attending a Connect Health service. We do this by focusing on reducing the impact of pain and helping people do more of the things they want to do.
We are proud of the outcomes that we help people to achieve and wanted to share both how we do this, but also wanted to ensure we actually achieved it! So, in 2017, we worked with the University of Northumbria, Newcastle, to undertake an analysis of our outcomes.
This research showed significant quality of life improvements for thousands of patients attending a Connect Health MSK Service. The “EQ5D” monitoring index – a very commonly used health status measurement – improved significantly by +0.203, setting a new standard for MSK services which we believe is related to how modern services are. Prior to this study, the standard across UK-based MSK services was +0.16 and demonstrates robustly the quality of care that we offer.
In order to help us demonstrate that we are helping people to reduce the impact of their pain and achieve their goals, we will ask you to complete a series of questionnaires during your time in a Connect Health service. These will ask you questions about you, your background, your goals, your symptoms, and their impact. This helps us tailor your treatment to you. It also gives us insight so that we can continue to innovate and improve the quality of care that we provide.
Culture of ongoing quality improvement – CQC
Care Quality Commission independent inspections are crucial in determining if a service is providing care that’s safe, caring, effective, responsive to people’s needs and well-led. Connect Health’s service was praised across all areas in its latest CQC inspection.
Follow the link below to view the full report on the CQC website
Patient Safety
Ensuring patient safety is a core focus at the heart of everything we do
Our Safeguarding Children and Adults Policies outline processes and procedures in line with NHS Standards, audited using national risk threshold tools demonstrating excellent compliance.
To comply with all adult safeguarding requirements our policies and procedures are in line with: Care Act (2014) and Local Safeguarding board policies and procedures.
Our process for Safeguarding is based around four experienced Duty Safeguarding Officers (DSO) trained to Level-4, acting as an immediate point of expert contact for staff for all Safeguarding issues raised.
Read our Safeguarding PolicyPutting patients at the centre with Personalised Care
Personalised care is one of the five major, practical changes to the NHS, as set out in the NHS Long Term Plan with an ambition to reach 2.5 million people by 2023/24 and then aims to double that again within a decade.
Personalised care means people have choice and control over the way their care is planned and delivered. It is based on ‘what matters’ to them and their individual strengths and needs.
Find out about Personalised Care
Improving Access
PCC – Patient Care Co-ordination
Saving precious time
It’s so important to get the treatment journey right, making sure all administrative interaction with patients and GPs, including appointment bookings, reminders, care plans, diagnostics coordination and discharge, are managed effectively.
Handling more than 25,000 patient referrals a month, around 6 million SMS text appointment reminders are sent by our Patient Care Co-ordination team every year reducing DNAs (did not attends) and streamlining care for patients.
Using standardised processes, systems and templates – predominantly SystmOne based, the expert team removes as much admin as possible away from clinicians so that they can focus on the patient experience.
Reducing NHS waiting times with PhysioLine
First Contact Practitioner
Rapid access to physiotherapy by telephone leads to improved outcomes,early assessment and treatment.
Challenge
Waiting times to access NHS physiotherapy services for a musculoskeletal problem following GP referral vary enormously across the UK.
Solution
By using telephone triage, the time to evidence-based advice is significantly reduced. The empowerment to self-manage conveyed at this telephone interaction is likely to reduce future consultations, reduce chronicity and increase availability to work.
Connect Health, working closely with commissioners, was one of the first organisations in the UK to introduce PhysioLine in 1999.
PhysioLine is physiotherapy assessment and early treatment by telephone or face to face and 100% of PhysioLine consultations are delivered by MSK specialist physiotherapists
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