NHS Managers

We understand the NHS, share its values, and want to help the NHS deliver a model of care that we all believe in. We work with both acute hospital trusts and PCTs, and expect to work with GP Consortia as they start to assume the key commissioning role within the NHS. Our concern is caring for patients in the way that is best for them, irrespective of institutional boundaries. We also want to deliver value for money for the health economy as a whole. We appreciate the organisational challenges facing NHS organisations and work closely with NHS managers to address the sensitivities of both internal and external stakeholders.

How we work with acute hospital trusts

We have a well-developed approach to implementing and delivering acute home healthcare to both medical and surgical patients. Our model of care offers a variety of benefits to acute trusts.

We share the vision of the acute trust of the future being a "hospital without walls", delivering services where it is most appropriate to deliver them, and getting the best value possible from the trust’s assets. Academic research points to acute home healthcare reducing the length of overall patient episodes, because patients typically mobilise earlier following surgery or illness, are less anxious, sleep and eat better and are less exposed to hospital-acquired infections. This in turn helps trusts deliver their services within budget.

With the advent of patient choice, our service also improves a trust's ‘marketing proposition’ to patients and prepares it for an increasingly competitive future.

Our service is available to support the cost of a locally based MediHome nurse manager and local nurse and physiotherapy team. On that basis we operate a ‘virtual ward’ in the community, at a cost that matches or beats the marginal costs of operating a physical ward. This helps an acute trust to operate within HRG tariffs and enables the hospital to cost-effectively reconfigure its services.

How we work with PCTs

We work closely with PCTs to complement the services already provided by community matrons and district nurses. We are also pleased to collaborate with NHS Community Trusts or Social Enterprises to help design services that draw on our expertise and systems, to deliver acute nursing and physiotherapy in the community in partnership with existing community teams.

Our services are usually substantially less expensive than treatment in hospital, and also more attractive to patients. They cover four key areas:

1. Facilitating discharge of patients incurring excess bed-days charges in the local acute hospital, who are off the critical list but still require acute nursing.
2. Providing an alternative to admission for patients requiring a variety of care needs including intravenous therapies, rehydration, escalated treatment for chronic medical conditions, and monitoring and rehabilitation for those considered vulnerable.
3. We are currently developing new in-home support services relating to stroke and end-of-life care.
4. Delivering intravenous therapies in the community, including chemotherapy for cancer patients and drugs for patients with conditions such as haemophilia and MS.