Community Respiratory staff In-Reach into care Homes finds unmet need and allows optimization of patient care plus care home staff Education

ABSTRACT

IntroductionDuring the Covid epidemic the care of patients in care homes to optimize their therapy and prevent admission has become a national Priority. In the Basildon and Brentwood CCG area staff normally working in the community respiratory service were redeployed to visit all the care homes in the area and review all patients with respiratory disease to optimize therapy, advise flu immunisation and support their care.MethodsAll care homes in the area of Basildon, Brentwood , Billericay and Wickford were visited and a review carried out on all patients resident there with respiratory disease. This included reviewing both notes and patients to find patients with respiratory disease. Therapy was reviewed and optimised, including obtaining new inhalers, spacer devices and rescue packs.Results163 patients were reviewed, of whom 116 had evidence of respiratory disease. 31 of these were already known to the community respiratory services and 85 were not known. 75% of patients needed a new salbutamol inhaler or aero-chamber spacer device. 58% of patients did not have a rescue pack of antibiotics and steroids and this was provided. 85% of those not already known to the service required salbutamol,. A spacer and a rescue pack.These were all provided.ConclusionsIn this area there was a large unmet need for treatment in patients in care homes with respiratory disease as one of their diagnoses. This project untaken during the covid epidemic has demonstrated that it was possible to provide this in a covid-secure manner and found a need for education of care home staff and a need for a wider application of this project which is now being rolled out to the other CCG (Thurrock) in our area. Educational materials are being produced and distributed to all care homes in the area. The in-reach of community respiratory team staff into care homes can be used as an avenue to ensure good education of care home staff and increase vaccination of staff and residents and optimization of therapy for residents to reduce the risk of hospital admission