Care City is one of seven Test Beds selected for Wave 2 of the innovative health and care programme, focused on tackling the challenges laid out in the NHS Five Year Forward Viewhttps://www.england.nhs.uk/five-year-forward-view/.
Long term conditions and lack of staff are the NHS’s biggest priority right now and Care City will respond to three East London STP challenges1, which are also present nationally. Care City’s ambitious programme will work to transform how we identify, treat and manage long-term conditions; increase skills and work force productivity; remodel areas of the workforce and service pathways across East London; and to scale these models nationally.
John Craig, Chief Executive, Care City, is delighted to lead another successful Test Bed opportunity:
“Our aim for this Test Bed is to use innovation to enhance the work and productivity of junior health and care roles. Domiciliary carers, healthcare assistants and hospital administrators represent around one million people across our health and care system. Enhancing their productivity is urgent for them and their careers, for patients and for the system as a whole. For Care City, it is a perfect focus, combining our twin aims of enabling healthy aging and helping to regenerate East London.”
The Test Beds programme run by NHS England and the Office for Life Sciences tests combinations of digital technologies with pathway redesign in a clinical setting with real patients. It harnesses the potential of innovations to help transform the way in which healthcare is delivered; empowering staff to deliver care that improves the quality of life for patients and carers.
Care City will work in partnership with eight innovations2 comprising of diagnostics, smartphone applications and management tools which are already making dramatic contributions to people with long-term conditions. Currently, there are barriers to their wider use caused by varying types of digital exclusion faced by patients, staff, organisations and systems. Care City will look at the power of junior members of the workforce to overcome those barriers, in partnership with patients.
Jane Milligan, Executive lead, East London Health and Care Partnership, is excited about the potential for the Care City Test Bed:
“We are delighted to support this Test Bed. We are excited about the chance both to improve outcomes for people with long-term conditions and to enhance the roles of vitally important junior members of our workforce, who too often remain hidden. We will learn with Care City and its partners, and are keen to rapidly grow successful solutions across East London.”
One way Care City will achieve this is by supporting Administrators to use digital tools TickerFit and DrDoctor to support patients to change their lives. These latest digital innovations will make pathway management in heart failure more personalised and efficient, which will save transactional time for administrators, and use the time saved to support them to encourage and support patients, capture data and shape the pathway around their needs. Testing will be in partnership with Barts Health’s heart failure service.
Avril Copeland, Managing Director, Innerstrength Health, believes the Test bed partnerships will drive positive change for patients and the workforce:
“We believe collaboration is key in developing sustainable pathways that will truly make a difference in patient care, so we’re delighted to join forces with Care City on the Test Bed Programme. Our goal is that TickerFit will be provided to all patients living with cardiovascular disease and we believe being part of the NHS Test Bed programme can help us realise this vision.”
Care City will be supported on its Test Bed Programme by Nuffield Trust, Innovation Unit, Good Things Foundation and UCLPartners.