As part of government plans for a “neighbourhood service”, healthcare staff could visit residents in their homes to address sickness, ill health, worklessness, and absences from work.
Wes Streeting, the health secretary of England, said in an interview with The Sunday Telegraph that early versions of this scheme showed “really promising signs” when it came to reducing the number of “frequent flyers”, or people who use the NHS often. This is what he called the “frequent users” of A&E departments.
He said to the newspaper, “I am actually very interested in the model of community health workers and their impact.”
Streeting said, “We are seeing some encouraging signs of what can be achieved if the right care is delivered at the right place and time, particularly amongst communities and families. They’re likely going to become what I refer to as ‘frequent flyers of NHS’.”
The paper claimed that the initiative would be implemented in 25 areas of England and could be part of a 10-year plan for the NHS to be announced in June.
This idea would have community health workers assigned to a 120-home community, and they would make monthly visits to determine if any help was needed.
The newspaper reported that the results of the pilot program in Westminster showed a dramatic effect, with a 10% reduction in hospital admissions in a single year. This included a 7% decrease in the number of people who visited A&E.
The cost of rolling out the scheme to the 10%-20% of the population that is the most in need could be around PS300m. However, it could reduce the burden placed on secondary and primary healthcare.
Dr Matthew Harriss is the man behind this idea. He was a clinical reader at Imperial College in London and saw a similar system in action while working as a doctor in Brazil from 1999 to 2003.
The paper reported that the program was credited for reducing deaths due to common heart conditions by over a third.
You could be forgiven if you thought it was interference. “But it’s giving control back to residents,” he said in the newspaper.
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