Interactive sessions enabled Connect Health practitioners to ‘press pause’ and 'take a step back’
Healthcare services provider Connect Health is pleased with the enthusiasm shown by more than 250 clinicians – including physiotherapists and pain management experts – who attended a recent series of interactive events.
Connect Health said ‘supercharging its NHS patient provision’ was the main purpose of the collaborative sessions, which were held in Darlington, London and Manchester.
Participants worked on scenarios that had been designed to boost their skills and confidence, in areas such as clinical decision-making, graded exposure and personalised patient care.
Mike Carpenter is a physiotherapist by background who is a consultant musculoskeletal (MSK) clinician, head of clinical delivery (south) and MSK national lead for Connect Health. He helped to facilitate the events with national pain lead Gail Sowden, another physiotherapist by background, who had overall responsibility for the study days.
PowerPoint 'in extremis'
Mike said: ‘A face-to-face, practical event was very important – PowerPoint was to be used in extremis! We used patient metrics and clinician feedback to focus on topics that are relevant to our day-to-day work and would enable discussions to happen.
‘It’s vital to “press pause” sometimes and take a step back – it lets us see where we can implement both small and longer-term changes, ensuring we’re continuously improving our processes and patients’ experiences, across all the communities we serve. And it’s great to receive such positive feedback from our colleagues. particularly as we intend to repeat these events in future.’
'Theme songs' to identify strands
The sessions also covered the treatment of specific conditions and encouraged participants to share ideas and best practice from their own community healthcare services.
Each learning strand was given its own ‘theme song’ during the fun summer events, inspiring attendees to tackle issues with fresh perspective.
It’s vital to “press pause” sometimes and take a step back – it lets us see where we can implement both small and longer-term changes, ensuring we’re continuously improving our processes and patients’ experiences ... [Mike Carpenter]
'No hierarchy'
Sam McIntyre, who is a physio and Connect Health’s head of operations north, NHS services, attended the Darlington study day. He said: ‘We’re in a unique position at Connect where we have pain teams, physio teams, rheumatology expertise – and more – all working together, in community healthcare services up and down the country. By collaborating further, building relationships and utilising resources we already have, we can supercharge our patient services.
‘As clinicians, we often place a lot of emphasis on expertise and skills, when such a large proportion of a positive patient experience is based on communication and “being on the same page” as the patient.
'Anyone, at any level, can make a real difference by listening and making an effort to understand an individual’s expectations. It’s what personalised care really means – and we can all make small, immediate changes to improve it.'
Sam added: ‘Another bonus of these sessions is that there is no hierarchy – graduates collaborate with experienced clinicians, and we learn from each other. We want to be challenged; there are always several ways of doing something, so let’s discuss and see how we can get the best outcomes.’
Author: I A McMillan
Share it with
