Tag: NHS Lothian

Family Nurse Partnerships celebrate tenth anniversary

The Family Nurse Partnership (FNP) programme celebrated it’s 10th birthday last week with special guest Nicola Sturgeon.

The First Minister, who initially helped launch the programme in Scotland ten years ago, attended the event in the Edinburgh Corn Exchange to meet many of the mothers and staff who she first met back then.

The First Minister said: “The Family Nurse Partnership is really close to my heart. We know that for any woman becoming a mum is a life changing experience but for young, first time, mums it can present particular challenges and the whole point of the Family Nursing Partnership is about helping young mums to overcome those challenges.

“It really helps mums and dads to give their children the best start in life and in my opinion it’s probably the best investment we can make as a society.”

FNP focuses on helping young, first time, mothers and their families to provide responsive, sensitive and positive parenting. It also helps them to develop self-efficacy to both identify and achieve their future goals.

Laura Wilson, 26, from Edinburgh, who was one of the first mothers to join the programme back in 2010 said: “Pam, my first Family Nurse, was willing to let me take things at my own pace and encouraged me to bond with the baby.

“Shortly after Caitlin was born I changed Family Nurses to Trudy, but honestly she was so nice and couldn’t have done a better job.

“She helped me to have the confidence to get out of an unhealthy relationship, which allowed me to be happier and to be a better parent.

“She also saw potential in me to help other parents in the community to breast feed. I received training and that allowed me to apply for my first job in the NHS as a clinical support worker and I’ve been there for six years now and I’m currently studying towards a HNC in care.”

In 2010 NHS Lothian became the first health board to provide this service in Scotland. In March 2015, Nicola Sturgeon announced Edinburgh city (as part of NHS Lothian) had been formally recognised as the first city in the world to have achieved delivery of a concurrent FNP service to all eligible clients. Since then the service has expanded to cover all of Lothian.

Val Alexander, the original FNP Supervisor for NHS Lothian, said: “Our first clients showed us that they wanted to become the best mums they could be for their children. Last night they evidenced that they had achieved their goal.  The first children of FNP now age 8-9 years presented as happy, confident and inspiring to all who attended.”

The programme was first developed 40 years ago in the United States of America by Professor David Olds and the University of Colorado. It has shown to improve pregnancy and health behaviours, reduce child abuse and neglect, increase maternal employment and economic self-sufficiency and reduce closely spaced subsequent pregnancies.

Since the initial introduction in Scotland the programme has continued to grow; for example the service was initially offered to mothers 19 years of age and younger where now it supports mothers from 21 years of age and younger. From 2015 NHS Lothian has supported NHS Borders to implement the FNP programme and in 2019 similar arrangements were put in place to include NHS Dumfries & Galloway.

Dorothy-Ann Timoney, FNP Supervisor, said: “We remain proud of our FNP programme in Lothian and as we strengthen and focus on quality improvement for our service we continue to value the ongoing feedback from the staff, clients and their families.”

Free Training Opportunity: Getting the Balance Right: Physical Activity and Healthy Eating

This course provides participants with the information, confidence and tools to support their client group to put healthy eating and physical activity recommendations into practice to improve health and wellbeing. 

WHERE AND WHEN

Tuesday, 17 March: 09:30 – 16:30

Chancellors Building

Seminar Room 1

Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, EH16 4SA

WHAT

Participants will have the opportunity to: 

·        Gain an understanding of the policy context relating to food and health, physical activity and mental wellbeing 

·        Gain an understanding of current eating and physical activity patterns in Scotland. 

·        Increase understanding of the definitions, key messages around food & health, physical activity and the links to mental wellbeing. 

·        Increase awareness of barriers to healthy eating and physical activity & raise awareness of behaviour change. 

·        Understand risk factors and benefits associated with healthy eating and physical inactivity 

·        Be aware of national and local initiatives and resources for promoting healthy eating, physical activity and mental wellbeing 

·        Reflect on learning and how it will inform professional practice. 

This course is provided free of charge by NHS Lothian Health Promotion Service. 

Book your place through Eventbrite HERE

John Brennan | Senior Health Promotion Specialist (Physical Activity) | NHS Lothian Health Promotion Service | R4008 Canaan Park  Astley Ainslie Hospital 133 Grange Loan Edinburgh EH9 2HL |  ( 0131 537 9419 È07776 225 778

Busiest year ever for NHS Lothian

The year 2019 was the busiest on record for NHS Lothian’s hospitals and community health centres, according to new figures published.

NHS Lothian provided care and treatment to more patients in 2019 than ever before, an increase of nearly three per cent (2.7%) on the previous year.

Local figures show a total of 1,693,614 attendances, admissions and appointments throughout acute and community services. In addition, general practices carried out around 5,000,000 urgent and routine appointments across Lothian.

Dr Tracey Gillies, Medical Director, NHS Lothian said: “The beginning of the year is a good time for us to reflect on what we have achieved in 2019 and look ahead to how we can improve and evolve in 2020.

“Every number represents a patient who required safe, effective, patient-centred care. These statistics show just how hard our staff work all year round to provide the highest quality care for our patients.

“I would like to thank them for all of their hard work as we look forward to a new decade of care.”

The number of adults and children requiring urgent care in Emergency Departments (ED) and Minor Injuries Units (MIU) across NHS Lothian rose by five per cent, compared with last year. On average, around 800 patients attended each day, with 288,663 people treated overall.

A total of 218,706 people were admitted into hospitals across NHS Lothian in 2019, a five per cent increase on the numbers for 2018.

Throughout the year, 1,046,277 outpatients were seen in clinics across community and hospital sites in NHS Lothian.

Meanwhile a total of 139,968 patients received unscheduled GP care including doctor’s advice, primary care emergency centre consultations, home visits and district nurse care. An increase of 1.49% increase from 2018.

Tim Davison, NHS Lothian Chief Executive said: “These figures underline just how important it is that the provision of healthcare services continues to evolve to meet rising demand and the changing needs of our population.

“This is not without considerable challenge, but NHS Lothian is committed to working with our Health and Social Care partners to redesign services across Lothian to meet that need.”

One more challenge NHS Lothian faces this year is the recruitment of two senior executives. Board Chairman Brian Houston resigned last week, and Chief Executive Tim Davidson, who announced his intention to retire last month, leaves in August …

NHS Lothian’s Nightingale Challenge set to inspire next generation of future leaders

NHS Lothian has launched its Nightingale Challenge to inspire nurses and midwives across the board to become future leaders.

The challenge, which is taking place around the world, forms part of the celebrations for the Year of the Nurse and Midwife and marks 200 years since the birth of Florence Nightingale.

The Nightingale Challenge encourages health employers to provide leadership and development training for their young nurses and midwifes during 2020. To date, more than 570 employers in 66 countries have signed up, involving around 25,000 nurses and midwives worldwide.

Across NHS Lothian, the focus for the challenge is ‘Inspiring the Next Generation.’ Through a programme of work NHS Lothian wants to promote the diversity of nursing and midwifery roles, and to highlight the various pathways to joining the professions. Already around 50 students and registered nurses and midwives across Lothian have signed up to take part.

The launch event on 24 January provided an opportunity for attendees to share their journeys into nursing and midwifery and to get involved in developing ideas to support the programme of events taking place throughout 2020 to mark the Year of the Nurse and Midwife.

Professor Alex McMahon, Director of Nursing, Midwifery and Allied Healthcare Professionals, NHS Lothian said: “I am delighted that NHS Lothian is joining the celebrations to mark the Year of the Nurse and Midwife, and that as part of this, will be getting involved in the Nightingale Challenge.

“The skills and experiences that I gained from my nursing days really have supported and enabled me to move into a range of leadership roles.

“I hope that through the Nightingale Challenge, we can inspire and encourage our young nurses and midwives to see themselves as future leaders, who will help to shape and support our NHS for years to come.”

NHS Lothian’s promotional activities in support of the Nightingale Challenge and the Year of the Nurse and Midwife can be followed by searching the hashtags #LothianYNM2020, #NightingaleChallenge, #ScotNurses2020 and #ScotMidwives2020 on social media. 

Who Cares? Tory concern over hard to fill job vacancies

The Care Inspectorate and Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) published new figures on the levels of staff vacancies in Scotland’s social care services yesterday.

Edinburgh has the highest percentage, 57%, of services reporting that vacancies are hard to fill and almost half of posts unfilled 49%.

West Lothian, Midlothian and Edinburgh have all shown an increase in the number of vacancy rates with East Lothian dropping slightly to 32%. 

Latest figures show West Lothian had 78 vacancies, 35%, Midlothian had 47 vacancies, 40%, and Edinburgh had the highest number of vacancies in Scotland 334, 49%.

Lothian MSP, Miles Briggs, said: “This report highlights the ongoing challenges of recruitment in Social Care and is another example of SNP Ministers’ terrible record on workforce planning.

“The continued high rate of vacancies for social care makes if very difficult to see improvement to services.

“Issues such as delayed discharge in hospitals and shortages in adult care homes are not going to be fixed until recruitment of staff is resolved.

“Edinburgh and the Lothians have particularly high vacancies for Social Care staff and have higher than average services struggling to fill posts.”

The report comes as the Scottish Government launches a new campaign to promote careers in adult social care ‘There’s More To Care Than Caring’.

The staff vacancies report provides a national overview of vacancy levels and recruitment difficulties reported by care services registered with the Care Inspectorate. It also includes data on the actual number of vacancies services have, which is held by the SSSC.

In the past year, 38% of services reported having vacancies, which is unchanged from the previous year.

However, care homes for adults, care homes for older people, housing support services, care at home services, nurse agencies and residential special schools all had a proportion of services with vacancies significantly above the national average for all care services.

Daycare of children and adoption services were significantly below the national average for all care services reporting vacancies.

At 31 December 2018, the rate of WTE vacancies for all services in Scotland was 5.5%, down from 5.9% in 2017. This was higher than the overall vacancy rate across all establishments in Scotland of 3.1%.

Lorraine Gray, Chief Executive of the SSSC said: “A vital consideration when looking at vacancies in care services is making sure that social care attracts people with the right values, skills and experience to work in the sector.

“We’ve worked with Scottish Government on the adult social care recruitment campaign, launched today, which aims not only to encourage more people to consider a career in care but also emphasises the values you need.

“The social service workforce is growing, there are more than 200,000 people working in the sector, which is almost 8% of all employment in Scotland, so there are lots of opportunities and different types of roles.

“It’s a fulfilling and rewarding career which gives you the opportunity to work towards qualifications as part of a professional workforce making a positive difference to people’s lives.”

Peter Macleod, chief executive of the Care Inspectorate said: “We know that an effective and stable staff team is important for providing the world class care everyone wants to see.

“It allows trusting relationships to be developed between people providing and experiencing care, often supporting positive experiences and outcomes.

“The Care Inspectorate recognises that recruitment and retention into some parts of the social care sector remains a challenge, and we collect significant data about the places and parts of the sector where recruitment problems are more challenging.

“This report has been prepared to provide a national overview of the vacancy levels and recruitment difficulties reported by care services in their Care Inspectorate annual returns.

“We know, of course, that numbers do not tell the whole story. The skills, experiences, and values of social care staff are just as critical as the right number of staff being employed.

“However, going forward we expect to see more innovative solutions embraced by care providers and commissioners, as well as increased partnership working between social care services, local authorities and other key partners to ensure that the underlying issues around filling problem vacancies can be addressed.”

Every care service is asked to complete an annual return every year to provide statistical and other information. The vacancy questions are asked for every care service type apart from childminders, who are typically sole providers.

Staff vacancies in care services 2018

NHS Lothian praises staff as health watchdog publishes inspection report

NHS Lothian has ‘welcomed’ the publication of Healthcare Improvement Scotland’s Royal Hospital for Sick Children (RHSC) and Department of Clinical Neurosciences (DCN) inspection report.
Continue reading NHS Lothian praises staff as health watchdog publishes inspection report

NHS Lothian rolls out ‘robust’ Winter Action Plan

NHS Lothian has rolled out a ‘robust action plan’ to ensure patients continue to receive the highest quality care throughout the busiest time of the year.

A detailed multi-million pound strategy to manage the predicted increases in demand is underway to bolster community and hospital services. Continue reading NHS Lothian rolls out ‘robust’ Winter Action Plan