NHS England published a letter on Friday 1 May requesting community services and general practices support care homes. Click here to read.
The service model will form the basis of a new DES in the autumn. The key components are:
- Delivery of a consistent, weekly ‘check in’, to review patients identified as a clinical priority for assessment and care.
- Development and delivery of personalised care and support plans for care home residents.
- Provision of pharmacy and medication support to care homes.
- To deliver this support, CCGs should take immediate steps to support individual practices and community health services teams to organise themselves according to their local areas or networks.
- CCGs must ensure that clear and consistent out of hours provision is in place for each care home.
- Secondary care providers should accept referrals and admissions from care home residents where clinically appropriate
- This support should be delivered for all care homes. A ‘care home’ is defined as a CQC-registered care home service, with or without nursing.
- This model should be established as soon as possible, and within a fortnight at the latest in order to support residents as quickly as possible.
- NHS England and NHS Improvement will collect regular ‘sitrep’ data from CCGs, starting next week, to understand the support being provided to care homes and the coverage achieved across the country.
- We will also run dedicated webinars, to share examples of good practice and practical implementation challenges and offer regional and system level support where needed.
- Additional costs for general practices and community health services providers – which cannot be met from their existing resources – may be eligible for reimbursement.