A respiratory service that has provided vital support to patients throughout COVID-19 has been shortlisted for a national HSJ Award – just a couple of months after winning another national award.
ImpACT+ (Improving Adult Respiratory Care Together) was recently recognised by being crowned Respiratory Care Initiative of the Year at the HSJ Value Awards in September and has now received further recognition in being shortlisted for Integrated Care Partnership of the Year in the upcoming HSJ Awards.
The service, which is a multi-disciplinary team (MDT) consisting of respiratory consultants, specialist nurses, physiotherapists and occupational therapists, offers on-going support and care to respiratory patients in the community as well as in hospital in the South Derbyshire area.
ImpACT+ has played a crucial role in caring for our patients this year, and the service has adapted to the challenges posed by Covid-19 by implementing virtual wards for patients, while the service’s telephone helpline ‘Lung Line’, which is open seven days a week, has provided invaluable support to patients in their own homes.
Dr Deepak Subramanian, Clinical Lead for ImpACT+ and Consultant Respiratory Physician, said: “Our team and the whole department have worked exceptionally hard this year. Everyone has really stuck together to continue to provide an outstanding service to our patients, and it is fantastic for this to be recognised at a national level.
“We’ve had to repeatedly change the way we work by setting up our virtual ward, providing additional face to face and phone call input to people discharged from hospital. We have also increased our wellbeing support for people with long term respiratory conditions, during what must have been a very scary time for them”.
Bringing together respiratory services in this way has also helped to “keep the patient at the centre” of everything – a point that was recognised by the HSJ Value Award panel in September.
Dr Ruth Aldridge, Consultant Respiratory Physician, echoed this praise as to how the team has worked together throughout the pandemic: “Everyone has been willing to take on new roles and responsibilities – for example conducting oxygen assessments for our virtual ward patients. We have had positive feedback from primary care staff about how useful our virtual MDT meetings have been; enabling patients to be managed in primary care and preventing the need for hospital assessment.”
Dr Gillian Lowrey, Consultant Respiratory Physician, added: “I am very proud of everyone in the team for being so adaptable and really going the extra mile. It is fantastic to have received this recognition, but most of all; we are just so pleased to have received such positive feedback from our patients, who have really valued this service.
“We are grateful to all the practice nurses, GPs, pharmacists and healthcare professionals across the region that have worked collaboratively with our team to help deliver the best care to our patients.”
The winners will be announced at a virtual ceremony on 17 March 2021.
