Workforce planning and development

The purpose of this project was to improve medicines optimisation for the management of patients with spasticity or neuropathic pain who attended multidisciplinary specialist neuro outpatient clinics at West Midlands Rehabilitation Centre. The secondary purpose was to identify how much input was required to optimise medication after a change in medication was advised and if this input could be adequately carried out by a Physiotherapist Independent Prescriber.

Historically the Consultant (prescriber) would review and make changes as required to a patient’s medication for managing their spasticity and neuropathic pain.  Patients could contact in case of concerns, however, there was usually no medication follow up initiated by the Consultant between clinic appointments. This was due to limitations on Consultant capacity. Time periods between clinic appointments for each patient could be between 3-12 months depending on the request of the Consultant. This meant that if there were issues with obtaining or taking the medication and the patient did not initiate contact, the issue would not be addressed until the patient returned to clinic.

NICE provides guidance that the prescriber should review the patient with regards to their medication after starting or altering a medication within a timely period. This is important as it ensures that patients receive the right choice of medication for them, at the right dose and right time to benefit their health.

Medication reviews following a face to face appointment do not necessitate a face to face appointment and telephone reviews can be completely adequate.  This is because patient achievement of goals of treatment with medication is primarily identified through subjective assessment. The standard in this project was set that all patients who required a medication change in clinic would be reviewed, on time via telephone consultation(s). The time at which the patient would be need to be reviewed would be dependent on the time period in which the prescriber advised the medication change to occur over.

To evaluate whether service improvements could be made to our community physiotherapy service through clinical streaming of patient referrals using underlying principles complexity science to consistently deploy the most appropriate member of the physiotherapy team to meet the needs of patients and improve the effectiveness of our service.

Historically, provision of MSK Ultrasound diagnostics has been via a referral to Radiology. However, there is increasing evidence that assessment, investigation and initiating treatment at the initial appointment is shown to be cost-effective, increasing patient satisfaction. Utilising this approach also reduces repeated hospital visits for further diagnostics and appointment times for results. The aim of using Point of Care (POC) ultrasound is to enhance the patient experience through instant access to diagnosis, timely implementation of most appropriate clinical pathway and achievement of the optimal outcome in the shortest possible time.

This study aims to investigate the benefits of point of care (POC) and schedule ultrasound clinics using a proof of concepts approach in the orthopaedic setting.

To evaluate the use and impact of a Band 4 Therapy Assistant (TA) in supporting rehabilitation in Speech and Language Therapy (SLT) and Physiotherapy (PT) in an ICU.

Non-medical prescribing was introduced in the United Kingdom (UK) to improve healthcare service efficiency, access to medicines and support service innovation. From 2013, independent prescribing was extended to include physiotherapists. Patients are facing increasingly long waiting times to see their GPs, and delays getting medication to aid their musculoskeletal ailments. This report aims to explore patient satisfaction of this service in a primary care musculoskeletal physiotherapy setting. IPOPS started provision of independent prescribing during physiotherapy sessions by a single physiotherapy practitioner in March 2017.

The Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment (CGA) is a multidisciplinary assessment that identifies the medical, psychosocial, and functional needs of older people. This service evaluation considers the impact of training allied health professionals (AHPs) and community nurses to undertake a CGA assessment in primary and community settings.

The service objectives are to:

1. Reduce workload of GPs
2. Provide assessment and self-management
3. Provide high quality care and a good patient experience to patients with MSK problems
4. Support patients to remain in/return to work
5. Provide staff with a positive experience.

The purpose of this project was to evaluate and monitor the progress and growth of the service against our service objectives

Some of the driving forces behind the Advanced Physiotherapy Practitioner (APP) are the 5 Year Forward View, GP Forward View, local Sustainability and Transformation Partnerships and local GP Cluster priorities. These drivers focused on workforce transformation within primary care and the MSK pathway. This service will enable patients to access a specialist MSK services at the beginning of the pathway.

This project also aimed to examine the outcomes of APP appointments to determine referring habits, changes in referral patterns and effects on GP workload and secondary care referrals.

The population of older people is rapidly growing and many are not living in good health; this escalating problem has significant economic and resource implications but more importantly impacts on individual quality of life in later years. In recognition of this 'perfect storm' the importance of embedding prevention strategies and health promotion interventions specific to older people is widely recognised. One approach to tackling this, Making Every Contact Count (MECC), empowers staff to initiate opportunistic conversations with people who report 'risky' health behaviours, supporting the first positive steps towards health behaviour change and self-management.

This quality improvement project was initiated following a record keeping audit which identified that healthy lifestyle conversations were recorded in only 19% of clinical records. It aimed to increase the number of documented healthy lifestyle conversations that clinicians have with Integrated Community Team patients.

The primary objective for sharing our activity via a Special Interest Report is to illustrate the need for independent measurable compliance of all physiotherapy services against HCPC and CSP Regulations and Standards.

Currently the HCPC re registration focus is on continuous professional development and the Care Quality Commission does not have jurisdiction to regulate standalone physiotherapy services: Therefore, all other regulatory checking is undertaken and reliant on the individual alone. The secondary objective of is to encourage physiotherapists to consider in depth and ensure they appreciate what are they stating, what they agree they are doing when they reregister and sign to state that they comply with all standards and regulations? Could auditing prove that this was the case and, if not, then why are they signing?

To explore the impact of putting senior clinicians at the bedside with clinical expertise in their speciality to improve quality of patient care. This role was introduced at Hampshire Hospitals Foundation Trust (HHFT) in 2016, whilst mainly undertaken by senior nurses, 2 physiotherapists and an occupational therapist have also undertaken the role. This presentation explores the impact of physiotherapists undertaking such roles.