Telecare provider celebrated for use of technology in care homes following CCG collaboration
Assistive technology provider Tunstall Healthcare has received a prestigious award for its work with NHS Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group and its Quest for Quality in Care Homes programme.
The company won the ‘Technology in Care Homes’ award at last week’s Leaders in Care Awards, recognising how the growing use of technology in the care home sector is essential to driving efficiencies and providing person-centred care.
The company was awarded for its Quest for Quality in Care Homes programme, which uses Tunstall’s telecare and telemonitoring systems to support individual care plans for residents, enabling a more preventative and integrated approach.
The company worked with NHS Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group, a membership organisation consisting of 25 general practices working with partners in the NHS, local authorities and the community sector to ensure health and care services are available to an estimated 220,300 people living in Calderdale.
Involving 1,300 care home residents across 38 homes since 2013, Tunstall’s initiative has seen a multidisciplinary team and care home staff working to improve care and prevent avoidable emergency hospital attendances and GP visits says the company, such as urinary tract and respiratory infections, falls and fractures.
According to the company, evaluation of the first two years of the programme 2014-16 revealed a fall in emergency hospital admissions from care homes by 33 percent, a reduction in the cost of hospital stays by £1.26million and a decline in GP care home visits by 45 percent.
Highlighting how telecare is helping to prevent falls in care homes, in the last year (2017/18 to 2018/19) of the initiative, admissions to hospital related to falls as a result of fractures reduced by 18.6 percent, resulting in savings of more than £300,000.
Commenting on the award win, Gavin Bashar, UK & Ireland Managing Director of Tunstall Healthcare, said: “To be recognised as a leader in the care home technology space is a huge honour for our team, alongside NHS Calderdale CCG, who have worked tirelessly to monitor and improve the lives of elderly residents living in care.
“The project has created a new model for care delivery which is replicable and scalable, and addresses the challenge of care home residents being disproportionate users of health services.”
Angus Honeysett, Quest for Quality in Care Homes programme director, added: “We’re delighted to win this award, it recognises the hard work that we do in the industry. But it’s not just about us – it’s about the people we work with on a day to day basis that make our job easier and help us make the Quest for Quality in Care Homes one of the most successful services of its kind in the country.
“It has not only generated efficiencies in terms of staff workload and reduced the impact on primary and secondary care, but it has improved the quality of care delivered, changing the lives of thousands of residents for the better.”
