Meghan White
Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board
Evidence in the NHS long term plan (2019), suggests that many people living in care homes are not having their needs assessed and addressed as well as they could be, often resulting in unnecessary, unplanned, and avoidable admissions to hospital and sub-optimal medication regimes. As per the 6 goals for urgent and emergency care, NHS Wales is tasked with delivering collaborative and preventative interventions or primary treatment before it becomes urgent or an emergency. Intervention should also be closer to home and meet the needs of local populations.
Currently there is no health or social care service that is focused on proactive and preventative interventions within the care home setting. The innovation of this project is to look at the health promotion and functional engagement of those residing in two care homes in Flintshire, as part of an upstream prevention project as opposed to the current services which are purely reactive.
Residents will be screened for suitability and assessed using an occupational therapy outcome measure of function at the start and finish of the intervention to evidence the impact. Alongside this will also be intervention with staff satisfaction and engagement to promote occupational performance and wellbeing using a staff survey and tailored training for sustainability.
Meghan White, Clinical Specialist Therapist
