The Long Term Conditions (LTC) Community
South West Region
Sandy Clarke - South West Regional Lead
07889209083
I am an occupational therapist with over 40 years experience in the health service and independent sector. I worked with older people and in adult rehabilitation before specialising in paediatrics.
My previous job took me all over the UK and put me in touch with people working at all levels in the health service, social care and the third sector as well as people using those services. Hearing their frustrations with the way care was being delivered made me determined to do whatever I could to make a difference.
This led to work with the Integrating Community Equipment Team in 2001 where I was the South West regional lead.
In my current job, working on Long Term Conditions, I support a whole systems approach to service development, improvement and delivery. I am the regional lead for the South West and work from home in Cornwall.
South West Regional Updates:
July 2010:
Joint meeting with the SHA End of Life Care lead and representatives from SWANO (South West Alliance of Neurological Organisations) to share information and make the links with the Long Term Conditions (LTC) and Older People’s (OP) work streams. Agreement to have a wider meeting in September to discuss common issues.
Maintaining links with SWANO to share information. Brief presentation and discussion about Personal Care Planning and the QIPP LTC programme.
Meeting arranged with SHA LTC lead, Director of HIEC, Dr Alf Collins from Co-creating Health, and all PCT LTC and OP leads to discuss the next stage of development for the workforce training plan for self care for the region.
Questions for this year’s RAG completed and sent out to all PCT LTC and OP leads for response by beginning of August.
Products from the Best Value, Better Care – Commissioning Epilepsy Services conference held in London earlier this year include a DVD, a resource pack for commissioners and edited transcripts of all presentations will be available on our website shortly.
QIPP at Board Level conference attended. The main messages from this conference were that
- Cost reduction and cost avoidance are both needed in order to get the savings required
- the wide variation in costs are due to different clinical practice and that standardisation aiming at best clinical practice will help reduce high costs
The QIPP collection on NHS Evidence includes LTCs and 10 new validated case studies will be added every month from now on Lifepsychol conference attended. The overall theme for the conference was quality of life with the first day focussed on sleep, chronic pain and fatigue. The second day looked at the importance of relationships, quality of life at home, personal care planning and self care for the workforce.
For previous regional updates, please see previous editions of the LTC team briefing document.
Links:
- Care planning resource pack CLICK HERE
- Self Care resource pack CLICK HERE
- Understanding commissioning for voluntary and community organisations CLICK HERE
- SWANO (the South West Alliance of Neurological Organisations) - CLICK HERE
swano exists to provide basic information about the most common neurological conditions in the South West, to give a brief overview of the needs of people affected by these conditions and to provide information about neurological charities working in the NHS South West area.
What swano can do for you
- Provide information about specific neurological conditions to assist commissioners and others in developing appropriate services for people with neurological conditions
- Act as a specialist resource
- Provide channels of communication between professionals, users of services and carers
- Share good practice from other health and social care organisations
- Help develop care pathways
- Facilitate partnership working between professionals and voluntary organisations
