'Fit for Future' is a community-wide review that is leading the way in modernising care for people with life-limiting illnesses. This is the first review of its kind.
An ageing population and funding cuts are putting significant pressure on our healthcare systems. These challenges represent a significant opportunity to look at what we are currently doing and how we can do things better.
Over the last two years St Margaret’s Hospice has invested in an extensive Fit for Future review to help us to identify and plan a model for the future provision of services provided by St Margaret’s Hospice across Somerset.
The Fit for Future Review identified six key challenges for St Margaret’s Hospice:
- Finance and funding
- Rising demand
- Maintaining quality
- Fractured services
- Accessibility and equity
- Maintaining and developing the workforce
With these key challenges now identified St Margaret’s Hospice (together with other partners, locally and nationally) aim to move plans forward by focusing on community development work, including the roll out of the ECHO (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes) project and broadening of our community services across the county. The use of this ECHO technology across the community will be a key growth area in the coming months. St Margaret’s Hospice is applying to Hospice UK to become the ECHO hub for Somerset. This will enable the hospice, following investment in capital and dedicated staffing, to increase the reach of tele-mentoring and education for key groups across the county. There is interest at present to roll this out with care homes in the first instance, with GPs also keen to understand how this could support them. It is anticipated that the ECHO hub would be established in Yeovil. In addition to ECHO, teams will be becoming more engaged with tele-conferencing when working remotely, both with colleagues and patients and carers.
As we approach solutions for each of the challenges above we will endeavour to keep everyone informed.
St Margaret’s Hospice
November 2017
