In the realm of healthcare, patient education plays a pivotal role in ensuring individuals understand their conditions, treatments, and how to manage their health effectively.

Shaping services around the needs of our population

We know that conveying complex medical information in a clear and accessible manner can be challenging. This is where Sussex MSK Partnership Central‘s animations step in, rethinking the way healthcare information is delivered to patients. 

Their three short videos – Introduction to Musculoskeletal Health, What to Expect and How to Prepare for Your Appointment and Person Initiated Follow Up offer simplicity in messaging, providing people with a clear understanding of the term MSK and what to expect from the service.

Accessible videos for people receiving MSK care

Accessible information about the services we offer

Jo Hall, Professional Lead at Sussex MSK Partnership, reflects: 

 As part of Personalised Care and understanding what matters most to people, we know how important it is to support people with friendly, accessible information about the services we offer, what to expect, and how to prepare, to enable them to make the most of any contact they have with us.  

It also goes beyond this – helping inform people about MSK health and beyond, offering reassurance and signposting to support living well within their community. 

By simplifying medical jargon and presenting information in a visually engaging format, people can grasp crucial healthcare insights more easily.

Through colourful visuals and dynamic storytelling, patients are not only informed but also entertained, making the learning process more enjoyable and effective. 

“We gained a lot of insight from our communities at The Big Conversation, hearing that people didn’t understand what MSK meant, who we are as a service and what we offer. It made a big difference to work with them to shape our animation to suit the needs of the end user.” Jo Hall, Professional Lead at Sussex MSK Partnership

Speaking directly to people at their Big Conversation events allowed the MSK service to understand what the local population wants and needs when it comes to accessible healthcare, helping to shape their offerings. By incorporating feedback and insights from these events, Sussex MSK Partnership Central ensured their animations provide valuable information but also resonate with and cater to the diverse needs of the community they serve. 

The team worked on the videos with local designer Katie Merrien, Founder of CommuniKate Design, who breaks down complex information into digestible, visual narratives.  

The service has also produced offline assets, including posters and leaflets, to ensure those who don’t have digital access can still benefit from the content of the video.

Furthermore, with incorporation of British Sign Language (BSL) this adds an invaluable layer of accessibility for deaf or hard of hearing individuals, ensuring that no one is left behind in understanding their healthcare journey.

Our work at Here focusses on bringing together service improvement, lived experience and data.

Last June we joined the Sussex Health Equity Fellowship, a brand new programme created by Sussex Health and Care and partnered with Kent Surrey Sussex Academic Health Science Network.

We were extremely keen to be involved and were thrilled that of the eight places offered two of our team were accepted onto the programme.

Fern Bolwell, Learning Lead and Tom Golden, Business Intelligence Analyst at Here both took part in the programme. We felt that having people from both an operational and data and a analytics perspective would of huge benefit due to how equity learning could be used by these different skills areas.

In this blog, Fern shares her more about the Fellowship and reflects on what both she personally and us as an organisation have learned from the experience.

What is the Health Equity Fellowship? 

The Health Equity Fellowship is a nine-month programme delivered by NHS Sussex and Health Innovation Kent Surrey Sussex. The programme aims to equip participants with the skills and knowledge to become key change agents within their organisations, promoting a focus on equity and reducing health inequalities. 

The Fellowship is delivered through a mixture of lectures, webinars, action learning sets, mentoring and connection to each other’s knowledge and experience. Alongside this, Fellows complete a work-based project with a goal of improving health equity.

‘We know that our society is not fair and equitable, and many people face

 

 

 

systematised and institutional discrimination and cannot thrive in the conditions in which they live. We recognise the structural and cultural inequalities that are embedded in our wider society, and that this impacts our work in health and care. We recognise the inequities in the healthcare system and we want to work to address those.’ 

I have always been passionate about justice and fairness in society and ensuring everyone’s voices are heard and acted on. My professional goal is to realise this mission through the work that I am doing with Sussex MSK Partnership and ensure that health equity is always considered in each decision for the patients who need it most.  

For me the opportunity to be a part of the Fellowship came at a key moment of change for the Sussex MSK Partnership as we looked to the future and worked on how to deliver healthcare differently.

What skills did we bring?

Sussex MSK Partnership had already set aside dedicated project groups to focus on health equity. This work has been divided into 3 workstreams – Data, Staff Support and Community.

I work across each project group and was able to see where each intersected and supported the other. We first focused on an evidence-based approach through both community outreach and data gathering to ensure the changes we make, make a difference where it is most needed.

The way we work at Here meant we were able to be agile and encouraged to be innovative and forward thinking in approaches to delivering healthcare. 

What have been the results? 

The Health Equity Fellowship gave me the opportunity to grow my capability in population health, innovation and evaluation. My understanding increased in applying an equity lens to change initiatives. As well as expanding my network and connecting me to experts in a wide range of relevant areas.

Following the fellowship, I presented at Sussex Partnership Foundation Trust and Sussex Medical School’s Anti Racism event to showcase our work at Sussex MSK Partnership. 

I felt truly inspired by the dedication of the team leading the Fellowship and emboldened by their hope, even when honestly discussing the real challenge and shocking impact of inequity and prejudice.  

During the 9 months of the Fellowship I was able to work on: 

• Community Appointment Days (a patient journey offered in the community alongside VSOs).  

• Improving our data capture and reporting to be able to see, at a glance, differences between access, experience and journey of different groups of patients.

• Used our data to inform where we should be supporting our community, through this evidence, we connected with Crawley Asian networks. 

• Shared the learning from the fellowship and delivered training for all Here colleagues on health equity. 

• Simplified the interpreter booking process to address inequity.

• Created a new process to ensure patients with adjustments were flagged on our systems so that we can proactively support their needs.

What is our learning and what are we taking forward from this? 

The Fellowship experience has extended my confidence, competency and language to challenge and advocate for health equity in projects, process, the workplace and the wider world. 

I actively seek out to surface where there are challenges for patients and colleagues based on protected characteristics.  focused on fixing, improving and most importantly sharing the learning and awareness for future prevention of inequity.

I am grateful to those who speak up and teach me. It has shifted my vision to a world where I am no longer blind to inequity. 

Earlier this month Sussex Health and Care Fellowship held a webinar to share more information about the programme, Fern was invited to talk and share her experience – you can watch it in full below.

How can you get involved?  

The Sussex Health Equity Fellowship is now recruiting for a new cohort of Fellows – details on how to apply are below. 

1. Health Innovation KSS website: https://healthinnovation-kss.com/news/sussex-health-equity-fellowship-opens-for-applications/ 
2. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7224325761082552320
3. Twitter: https://x.com/HealthInnov_KSS/status/1818563477654417445
   
4. Applications close on 2nd September 2024, 11:59pm

PRosPer – Long Term Conditions eLearning course has just launched, featuring a case study highlighting the impact of Community Appointment Days.

Sophie Wickins, Clinical Project Manager at NHS South, Central and West (SCW) approached Georgi Daluiso-King, from Sussex MSK Partnership to contribute to the programme upon discovering Georgi’s exceptional work in Personalised Care and her involvement in Community Appointment Days (CADs).

SCW’s Cancer and Long Term Conditions Team have developed the new PRosPer (Prehabilitation, Rehabilitation and Personalised Care) for Long Term Conditions eLearning for Health module on behalf of NHS England.

This collaborative piece of work was developed using the clinical and service redesign skills from within the SCW team and front-line clinicians doing amazing work in the field.

The case study is included in the Strategic Level module, which follows on from the 2 earlier modules (Foundation and Intermediate).

The case study states:

Sussex MSK Partnership Central is a joint venture delivered by Here (a not-for-profit social enterprise) and Sussex Community NHS Foundation Trust. 

 

They have truly embraced the PRosPer principles for improving services for people with LTCs. They have addressed every element of the House of Care through the development of their services.

Combining these insights and in-depth understanding of transforming clinical services, the module aims to provide practical examples and opportunities for clinicians, clinical leads, commissioners and people with strategic decision-making powers in developing the knowledge required to deliver quality improvements in their services and influence system change.    

We are pleased to confirm that this session is now live on the NHS Learning hub:    

Session link: https://learninghub.nhs.uk/catalogue/PRosPer-long-term-conditions?nodeId=7616 

Programme/catalogue link: https://learninghub.nhs.uk/Catalogue/PRosPer-long-term-conditions 

Have an idea or a project you think we could work together on? We’d love to collaborate with you!

Get in touch at: collab@hereweare.org.uk

Last Monday, colleagues from Sussex MSK Partnership Central supported University Hospital Sussex to see 240 people at their own Community Appointment Day (CAD).

Held at the Sports Centre at University Of Sussex in Falmer, the CAD supported people from Brighton through strengths- based What Matters to You conversations, and tailored advice, guidance, and rehabilitation depending on their individual needs.

Community providers were also on hand to offer additional support and to connect people on a wider basis with their health and wellbeing. Including SCFT Living Well Programme, Freedom Leisure, Aging Well, MIND, Together Co Social Prescribing, Brighton and Hove City Council and Sussex Integrated Care Board.

The feedback from those who attended was hugely positive and it was great to support people in the community.

“It was so wonderful to be listened to. Everyone was so kind. Please thank everyone as I now understand more about my condition and can be proactive in my recovery.” – Feedback from attendee

Look out for further CAD updates over the coming months.

We were lucky enough to welcome some of the team from The Chartered Society of Physiotherapy at our most recent Community Appointment Day to experience what this innovative approach is all about!

Sara Hazzard (She/her), Senior Strategic Communications, Campaigns, Policy, Improvement and Marketing Leader at The CSP has shared her thoughts about the day in a fantastic article for the Health Service Journal – ‘How to radically reduce your MSK waiting list in two days’.

You can read it in full here: https://www.hsj.co.uk/comment/how-to-radically-reduce-your-msk-waiting-list-in-two-days/7035793.article

Thank you to Sara, Mindy Dalloway and Clare Aldridge from The CSP for joining us.

To learn more about CADs: Community Appointment Days – An idea that rapidly turned into an innovation

Email: collab@hereweare.org.uk