The National CLEAR Programme has launched new transformation projects at three NHS trusts across North East and Yorkshire to tackle waiting times, improve patient outcomes and enhance staff wellbeing within key priority services.
Clinicians and managers from Humber Teaching NHS Foundation Trust and Sheffield Health and Social Care NHS Foundation Trust are leading projects that will examine challenges in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) and eating disorder services and recommend new models of care. They will be trained in the CLEAR transformation methodology and supported throughout by the national team.
Two further CLEAR projects at Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust are focussing on improving same day emergency care service for adult patients, the care of patients waiting in A&E in need of emotional wellbeing support and children and young people admitted to hospital waiting for CAMHS services. These are being led by the national CLEAR team working closely with trust colleagues.
The 26-week projects have been sponsored by NHS England and are due to finish early next year.
As with all CLEAR projects, they will follow the four stage CLEAR methodology – clinical engagement, data analysis, innovation and recommendations.
Humber Teaching NHS Foundation Trust
This CLEAR project will support the trust’s Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) in Hull and East Riding to reduce waiting times and develop new models of care.
The two CAMHS teams have faced an increase in demand since COVID-19 resulting in greater pressure on the services and longer lengths of stay.
The work will examine the current challenges faced by both teams and explore opportunities to enhance the CAMHS urgent treatment pathway and the potential for further system collaboration to support children and young people after discharge.
Sheffield Health and Social Care NHS Foundation Trust
Clinicians at the trust will lead projects to optimise the Sheffield Eating Disorders Service (SEDs) day service with the aim of reducing waiting times for patients and improving staff experience.
The day service runs three days a week in Sheffield to support people aged 16 and over who’re very ill to avoid hospital admissions. It also assists patients who’ve been in hospital return to the community. Most patients spend 12 weeks with the service.
The project will examine the challenges experienced by day service staff, seek to improve the patient pathways involved and explore the potential of extending the service to five or seven days a week with additional locations to improve access, increase capacity and reduce the length of stay.
Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust
The CLEAR programme will be working with the trust on two transformation projects: one focussing on improving the efficiency of their same day emergency care service for adult patients in medicine, surgical and gynaecology and the second on enhancing the care of patients waiting a long time in ED in need of emotional wellbeing support and paediatric inpatients waiting for CAMHS services.
Both will focus on services at Calderdale Royal Hospital (CRH) and Huddersfield Royal Infirmary (HRI).
The new projects will support the trust with its ongoing plans to reconfigure services over the next five years – increasing its understanding of activity and demand while proposing new models of care to improve the patient journey and staff experience.
