The Mid and South Essex Community Collaborative (MSECC) was set up in 2020, bringing together community providers in the Mid and South Essex Integrated Care System to deliver consistent and high-quality community health and care services for residents across the system.
Prior to the formation of the MSECC, there were three tissue viability services in the system that had very little interaction or shared learning from each other. Patients in different parts of the system were accessing different levels of care as a result.
Action taken
In response to the variation in care across the system, the collaborative formed the MSECC Tissue Viability Team made up of health professionals from each provider, which started meeting regularly to share their experience of delivering their own services. They assessed the data, and shared learning from each care pathway, taking the best parts from each service and bringing it together. The team then piloted an expanded service delivered by district nurses.
However, the change in service had an impact on the district nursing team's already busy workload so it was agreed that there was a need for a dedicated ambulatory lower limb clinic. Members of the tissue viability team in mid Essex visited the ambulatory clinics being run by the partner organisations and observed how their clinics operated.
This led to the mid Essex tissue viability specialists developing plans for dedicated ambulatory clinics, which included six new members of staff who run three clinics a day, five days a week across mid Essex.
Outcomes and impact
Ambulatory clinics have now been successfully set up across the system, with the aim of seeing patients within two weeks of referral. Timely assessment means patients with lower limb wounds are referred on if clinically indicated following assessment or are monitored and any deterioration can be recorded and addressed quickly.
Patients across the system now have easier access to specialist nurses with the right skills and training; nurses are involved in patients' care throughout and become a familiar face and safe person to go to.
Read more about the work of the Mid and South Essex Community Collaborative which is a partnership of Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust, North East London NHS Foundation Trust and Provide Community Interest Company.