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Press release: New report published on improving children's services in the NHS19 Jul 2006 Children have been receiving faster and more appropriate NHS services thanks to a 10-month change programme, according to a new report published today by NHS Employers. Around 40 NHS organisations took part in the programme, which encouraged them to review how they run their children's services and look at how they can make improvements. The report, Improving services to children through large scale workforce change, shows how healthcare teams found they could speed up waiting times, make more effective use of staff and enable more children to access services. In one example, East Yorkshire PCT and Yorkshire Wolds and Coast PCT were able to reduce waiting times to children's mental health services in Goole from 26 weeks to just two weeks. Health visitors realised that if they re-arranged their caseloads and introduced brief intervention techniques, they could give more help to families with more complex needs earlier on. The team also started running a series of parenting programmes, including one for parents of adolescents, as well as an early intervention behaviour clinic for children who would previously have been referred to the children's and adolescent mental health service. NHS Employers deputy director Alastair Henderson said: "The NHS already provides an excellent service to many patients across the UK, but we will always be striving to make improvements to ensure patients receive even faster and more appropriate care in the future. "One of the roles of NHS Employers is to support staff to constantly review how they provide services and question themselves on how they can make improvements. By doing this, the health visiting team in Goole were able to make quite a dramatic difference to lives of local children and their parents. But they are just one example. Our report shows many other case studies in community, acute and mental health services across England, where staff were able to make significant improvements." The children's services programme was run by NHS Employers' large scale workforce change team over 10 months. During the programme, each participating trust set up a project team to look at specific issues within their organisation that related to children's services. The project teams learnt how to analyse their issue and look at solutions. They then drew up and implemented a plan with achievable objectives to improve services for patients through redesigning job roles and services. Other case studies North Hampshire Hospitals NHS Trust has introduced two generic health support workers in two special schools to support the nursing and therapy teams. One is supporting an orthotic clinic previously run single handed by the physiotherapist. This has released time for the physiotherapist to see twice as many children in the time available, enabling her to focus on the clinical assessment process with the orthotist and reducing waiting times for children. The other is supporting the special school nurse, enabling her to concentrate in her role as key worker on more complex nursing assessments and to be available to provide counselling and support to parents during school hours. East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust was able to reduce the amount of time that children and their families spend in A&E by introducing a paediatric nurse practitioner for minor cases. As a result, children with minor injuries are now seen quicker, children receive pain relief quicker if necessary, parents find the nurse more accessible and less daunting to talk to than a doctor, and doctors are freed up to concentrate on more complex cases. Related publicationsImproving services for children through large scale workforce change (411 kB PDF) Notes for editors
Contact detailsThe press office provides a comprehensive service to keep journalists informed about the work of NHS Employers. If you have a media enquiry, please contact the press office team:
For out of hours media enquiries, please contact the duty press officer on 07880 500726. Last reviewed 19 Jul 2006 |
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