Innovation win for care home project

A Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board project, which is cutting waiting times for care home patients in Bridgend who need access to multidisciplinary advice, has won a MediWales Innovation Award.

The project, which won in the ‘Social Care Innovation through Collaboration’ category, showcases a new integrated way of providing swallowing, nutrition and medication management to care home residents to improve clinical outcomes, reduce unwarranted hospital admission and improve job satisfaction for health and social care staff.

This new way of working ensures that residents, who have eating, drinking, and swallowing difficulties, can receive online care from multiple health professionals at the same time. The integrated approach is the first of its kind in Wales, reducing in-person appointments and preventable hospital stays for residents.

Clinical lead specialist for speech and language therapist Sheiladen Aquino said: “An elderly care home resident can often have multiple difficulties caused by aging. This commonly includes problems with swallowing (dysphagia) which can lead to malnutrition and missed medications.

“Until now, care home staff would need to ask the GP for referrals to three different services including a speech and language therapist for swallowing difficulties, a dietician for nutrition advice, and a pharmacist for a medication review. This means waiting on three different waiting lists and attending three different appointments.”

Dr Tom Powell, Head of Innovation at CTM said: “‘Collaboration is vital for driving innovation and the work led by Sheiladen and her team showcases the power of partnerships in achieving impactful results that benefit patients. It’s really exciting to see this work taking place in CTM and for all the team’s hard work to be recognised.”

08/12/2023