Seventy-five day update for Lincolnshire NHS 100 day stroke services challenge

Patients and specialist services from across the county have been part of the Lincolnshire NHS 100 day stroke services challenge, which has now reached the 75 day point.

100 day challenges are intensive periods of action and collaboration whereby practitioners and stakeholders set ambitious goals, and develop and test creative solutions in real conditions.

Patients, the Stroke Association, Lincolnshire Community Health Services NHS Trust (LCHS), United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust and Lincolnshire County Council are working together to improve care for stroke patients.  

The teams are working to improve stroke patients’ experience from leaving hospital to care at home, which includes reducing the length of hospital stay and enabling people to live well in their communities.

To reduce the length of hospital stay, funding has been secured for stroke dedicated orthoptic sessions to help patients who have visual deficits after suffering a stroke. This team is also working on ways to enable patients to manage their own medication as soon as stroke patients are capable, to help prevent this being a reason to stay in hospital.

Catherine Stamp, Advanced Speech and Language Therapist at LCHS said: “My team is helping patients to live well in their communities after surviving a stroke.

“The Living Well After Stroke support groups are going well and patients and carers have told us they are useful and they have learnt about strokes, how to manage their condition and have benefitted from meeting other people in the same position as them.

“We’ve also had some valuable patient feedback on the support videos we’re creating as a source of information for stroke patients. We are hoping to launch these in the New Year.” 

The team exploring ways to create a seamless patient experience through different stages of care and recovery, have been working towards increasing staff knowledge and awareness of the services that patients and families access as part of their journey. They are also evaluating good practice and areas for improvement when patients move between different services, by getting feedback from patients, carers and staff.

Tracy Pilcher, Director of Nursing, Allied Health Professionals and Operations at LCHS said: “I am impressed with the dedication and commitment of all the staff involved in this challenge. The teams are certainly driven to make improvements in how we care for stroke patients in Lincolnshire.

“I look forward to the conclusion of the challenge in the New Year to see the results.”

The final evaluation at 100 days is in early January 2020.

LCHS staff Catherine Stamp and Amy Evans, Advanced Occupational Therapist, have recently been honoured for their work on getting patients involved in stroke service improvements at an award ceremony earlier this month. They were runners up in the Patient Involvement Award.