Health to Hand News
Community Care launch in partnership with Prestige Nursing
We are delighted to announce our strategic alliance with Prestige Nursing, supporting community nurses in their work with patients and their families. The new partnership will strengthen our network reach to 2,500 field based practitioners, who combined provide over 843,000 hours of patient care a month.
Community nurses have a hugely important role in the management of patient care and work closely with doctors and other members of the multidisciplinary team. They educate and support patients, relatives and carers within a variety of settings such as palliative and home from hospital care and cover a wide range of healthcare areas;
- Blood disorders
- Gastro-enterological
- Gastro-intestinal
- Cardiac
- Respiratory
- Care of the Elderly
- Diabetes
- HIV/AIDS
- Incontinence
- Learning disability
- Oncology
- Neurology
- Pain Management
- Paediatrics
- Psychiatry
- Renal Medicine
- Skin Disease
Our community network comprises PCT care (40%), private patients (56%), social service (covering learning disabilities; children and young people and adults & older persons) and acquired brain Injury and acquired spinal injury patients.
The project will be rolled out with the continuing support of the CDNA. Anne Duffy, CEO commented, "The Community & District Nurses Association congratulate Health to Hand on their excellent vision for developing an up to date information pack for patients, their families, carers and professionals. Their product will deliver a much needed resource for all. We look forward to working alongside the Health to Hand Team". For more information on the important work of the CDNA, visit www.cdna-online.org.uk.
There is much work to do in the development of health education. For example, there are currently over 2.5 million people with diabetes in the UK and there are more than half a million people with diabetes who have the condition and don't know it. Effectively controlled Type 1 diabetes can reduce the risk of:
- new eye disease by 76%
- worsening of existing eye disease by 54%
- early kidney disease by 54%
- more serious kidney problems by 39%
- nerve damage by 60%
Cardiovascular disease or CVD is the UK’s biggest killer. Within 10 years The British Heart Foundation aims to reduce the number of deaths from CVD in the under 75s by at least half and ensure that at least two thirds of people under 75 survive a heart attack. Each year around 428,000 inpatient cases are treated for CHD in NHS hospitals and approximately 30,000 coronary bypass operations and 70,000 coronary angioplasty with stents (percutaneous coronary interventions (PCIs) are carried out in the UK. Community nurses working with these patients are able to educate and support these patients in smoking cessation and making improvements to their diet and lifestyle. Working together to improve the patient’s understanding of their disease incorporating blood pressure and cholesterol monitoring helps improve hospital re-admission rates and overall medicines compliance.
NICE's new guidance, ‘Medicines adherence: involving patients in decisions about prescribed medicines and supporting adherence’, published earlier this year, says: "It is thought that between a third and a half of all medicines prescribed for long-term conditions are not taken as recommended. If the prescription is appropriate, then this may represent a loss to patients, the healthcare system and society. The costs are both personal and economic."
Klynn Alibocus, senior manager, patient adherence solutions at IMS Health recently wrote, “Non-adherence is an avoidable problem that should not be assumed to persist simply because some patients always 'forget to take their medication'. The problem is more complex than this. While patients might report forgetfulness to researchers as the main reason (56 per cent) for not adhering, there is typically an underlying conviction or confidence problem. The challenge for all adherence programmes is to reach out to these people – the sceptical, the unaware and the frustrated – and provide a combination of information and motivation. The unaware and frustrated want to get better, but don't know how to do it, while the sceptical need the motivation. Successfully targeting these patients will move the adherence curve in a positive direction. Non-adherence is not simply a 'patient problem' either. As the guidance points out, it starts with an exploration of patients' perspectives of medicines and the reasons why they may not want to, or are unable to, use them. The main contention and broad thrust of the guidance is, therefore, that adherence rates will improve when healthcare professionals really understand the needs of their patients, what motivates them and how involving them in the decision-making process can have a positive influence.” When equipped with the right resources, community health practitioners are ideally poised to improve the current communication gap that occurs between hospital care and when patients are transferred back into the care of their families and communities.
Our clients can use our services to reach community nurses and their patients, getting their message across to raise awareness of disease or services, improve disease understanding and medicine compliance, signpost to further support available or simply develop knowledge of best practice. We deliver education resources through a range of channels; print, dvds, sampling, online - either for the healthcare professional directly or through the healthcare professional for the patient. Our forthcoming launch is in early February 2010 - contact us on 0208 4171442 or at talktous@healthtohand.com if you would like to be involved.
