Working together towards 2009
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Details of the Four Pilots
The Scarborough health community covers a large geographical area with a population of 230,000 which rises heavily during the summer. It’s sites are geographically isolated which presents key problems for WTD compliance. The local acute and primary care trusts are working together with a wide range of stakeholders to fundamentally review patient flows through health and social care systems and look at different ways of providing care - particularly outside normal working hours.
The Morecambe Bay area covers around 1,000 square miles, with pockets of urban deprivation, large rural areas and a university city with a large transient population. University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Trust has already implemented much change with regard to the WTD legislation. They will be building on this work and using a whole systems approach to explore solutions to the WTD challenge that encompass shift and rota redesign and service reconfiguration.
Paediatric services face particular problems achieving WTD compliance. As medical staff cannot participate in cross cover arrangements. Paediatric units across North Central London are addressing these challenges using a multi-modal approach led by Great Ormond Street hospital. This will include optimising deployment of medical staff by concentrating inpatient services on fewer sites and working across organisational boundaries.
North Cumbria Acute Hospitals NHS Trust is comprised of two main sites some 40 miles apart and a network of cottage hospitals. It provides services to residents of north Cumbria but also to Dumfries and Galloway and part of Northumberland. There are therefore a range of barriers to achieving WTD compliance. North Cumbria will be examining patient flows from primary to secondary care to develop an integrated service delivery plan that will identify opportunities for workforce redesign.
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Working Time Directive cooperative solutions pilot sites are announced
Working Time Directive compliance can be a particular challenge for a small or isolated NHS organisation. One of the ways of meeting this challenge is the development of co-operative and integrated solutions across the health community. In the first WTD 2009 pilot work, Skills for Health - Workforce Projects Team invited bids from organisations to host cooperative solutions pilot projects. Responses were received from communities across the country and were considered by an evaluation panel at the end of January. The panel was made up of a mix of workforce planning, service development, finance, policy and clinical representatives. Four bids – from Scarborough health community, Morecambe Bay hospitals, the North Central London paediatric services and North Cumbria Acute hospitals were given the go-ahead.
The four pilots provide a balance between some of the different challenges that health and social care communities will face in order to meet compliance. They include rural community working, specialist services structure, whole healthcare community solutions and working across split site NHS trusts.
Work with the sites is underway now and a key part of the pilot working will be to share information as soon as possible so lessons and solutions can be shared. Full project documentation will be available on the portal from early April.
Information on the second WTD 2009 pilot specification is available by clicking here. Bids are being invited now. |
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