Background
More than 590,000 households in the East Midlands reported having one or more people with a limiting long term illness, health problem or disability.
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People with long term conditions use around 40% of all emergency/urgent hospital bed days
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Around 80% of GP consultations are for people with long term conditions.
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In 2010, 17% of emergency hospital admissions in the East Midlands were for people with long term conditions and of these, 26% were for repeat episodes of the same condition.
Long term conditions management is fragmented, reactive and poorly coordinated. There is insufficient focus on the genuine potential of health promotion and prevention. Half of all people with long term conditions were not aware of treatment options and did not have a clear plan that lays out what they can do for themselves to manage their condition better.
Our vision for long term conditions stated:
People will understand their condition and how to manage it. They will be empowered to access care by following their own care plan, ensuring management of their condition is planned rather than reactive. The service will be based around the needs of empowered and informed ‘expert’ patients who have continuous support and resources for self care supported by a diverse workforce including GPs, specialists, social workers and educators.
Patients will receive integrated assessment and planning of their health and social care needs and will have access to information to help them make choices. Services will be based on prompt health promotion, diagnosis and treatment as close to home as possible.
Carers and their families will not be forgotten and will have access to appropriate support and services.
Delivering our vision in more challenging times
We have now entered a time of greater financial constraint which means we need to refresh the way we plan to continue to deliver our vision. We need to prioritise the changes we can make that will have the biggest impact on driving up quality while at the same time help make our local NHS more efficient.
In the area of long term conditions, the East Midlands health community is concentrating on a number of key areas:
