Shropshire health trusts and CCGs celebrate Experience of Care Week

Experience of Care Week is a national initiative running from today, Monday 23 until Friday April 27.

The county’s health trusts and commissioning groups have offered their support to join the national ‘End PJ Paralysis' campaign.

This coincides with the 70th anniversary of the NHS this year, a 70 day challenge was launched earlier this month, aiming to get patients in hospital up, dressed in their own clothes, and moving to boost their recovery and enable a quicker discharge date.

Research has suggested that patients older than 80 years old and above who spend 10 days in a hospital bed will lose 10 per cent of their muscle mass.

The campaign was launched to raise awareness of the health benefits of getting people dressed, out of bed and as active as possible, while in hospital.

The Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital, Shropshire Community NHS Health Trust, Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust, South Staffordshire and Shropshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, Shropshire Clinical Commissioning Group and Telford & Wrekin Clinical Commissioning Group – all of which make up the Shropshire Local Health Economy Experience Group – will be actively promoting this.

The group will also be promoting the work of the new observational tool called Observe & Act that was developed by the Shropshire Community Health NHS Health Trust’s Patient and Carer Panel.

This is being used locally to good effect and both NHS England and NHS Improvement have supported the initiative which has been rolled out among many health trusts regionally, with many enquiries also coming in nationally about it.

To mark Experience of Care Week, the Shropshire Local Health Economy will be holding a national webinar on the Observe & Act tool, carry observations in all local health trusts and health commissioners during the course of the week and recognise the great work that Shropshire Community Health NHS Health Trust’s Patient and Carer Panel have undertaken with a presentation from Shropshire Local Health Economy Experience Group.

Alison Harper, patient experience manager for the Orthopaedic and Chair of the Shropshire Local Health Economy Experience, said she is delighted that other Shropshire trusts’ and CCGs are supporting these campaigns.

She said: “Getting patients dressed and moving is a vital step to boost their recovery and to ensure patients do not spend any longer than necessary in hospital.

“I hope that Shropshire can have a big impact on helping to achieve the national ambition to save one million patient days in just 70 days to get patients out of hospital and back home.”

She added: “We’ll also be using the Experience of Care Week to celebrate the nationally recognised Observe & Act that is being rolled out. We’re proud that this initiative started out in Shropshire and believe Experience of Care Week is the perfect opportunity to shout about it.”