The NHS in the North West is stepping up community care, strengthening same day emergency care and  offering more falls services for older people, as part its preparations for winter.

NHS chiefs nationally have asked hospital trusts to focus on ensuring patients are cared for in the safest possible place and treated as quickly as possible this winter, warning urgent and emergency care services are likely to come under “significant pressure”.

In the North West, winter preparations are well underway and work to support patient safety and quality of care and boost resilience ahead of the coldest months includes:

• The opening of a new resuscitation area in the emergency department at Arrowe Park hospital, Wirral.
• New ways of ensuring patients are signposted to the right place for their needs, including an ipad assessment tool at East Lancashire Hospitals Trust’s urgent treatment centres at Blackburn and Burnley, which helps staff to identify patients who need immediate care and refer other patients to more appropriate services.
• Hospitals are not always the best place, especially for older people who could experience increased frailty after a hospital admission. Between June 2023 and June 2024 urgent community response teams in the North West provided care to more than 80,000 people where they live and work is ongoing to expand this ahead of winter.
• All hospitals with major A&Es now deliver same day emergency care services, which give patients access to acute medicine and support them to remain at home.  At the frailty same day emergency care unit at Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, medical, nursing and therapy teams work together to determine the best way to treat frail patients and enable them to return home safely with any follow up care they need rather than being admitted to hospital. The is open 12 hours a day Monday – Friday and eight hours a day at the weekend.  GPs can refer patients in, and patients can access it directly via NHS 111.
• In Lancashire and South Cumbria, the NHS is rolling out smart lamps in care homes that use AI to help prevent falls or ensure they are detected earlier and staff alerted immediately.

All hospitals in the North West now have a care transfer hub, which works across the NHS and social care to manage discharges for patients with more complex needs and these are already having a positive impact on the number of discharges, which increased by around 3,000 (9%) in the North West in August 2024 compared to the same month last year.

Work is also ongoing to help people to receive the medical care they need in the place they call home through virtual wards, which include services for frailty, acute respiratory infections, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), heart failure and children’s health conditions. This winter, 19 services in the North West will provide a total of 1,810 virtual ward beds – around 500 more than last winter – to help people be cared for safely and conveniently at home, rather than being in hospital.

NHS England North West interim Regional Medical Director Dr Gareth Wallis said:

“As always, we’d like to acknowledge the efforts of NHS staff, who have worked incredibly hard over the last year – sometimes in very challenging circumstances.

“Winter is always a time of increased pressures for the NHS and our absolute priority and focus will be to ensure patient safety through this period.

“The wide range of initiatives we’ve got in place across our NHS services, and working with wider partners, help more people receive care at home or in the community, improve access to NHS services, help keep people well and ensure people can be safely discharged from hospital at the right time.”

Supporting people to stay well is a key part of winter plans and includes making sure people who are most at risk from winter viruses are vaccinated to help protect them from severe illness.

The first ever campaign for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), a common cause of coughs and colds which can be dangerous to older people and young children, is already underway and bookings have opened this week for those eligible for flu and COVID-19 vaccines.

It is hoped this year’s vaccination campaigns will help avoid a “tripledemic” of RSV, covid and flu colliding during an already busy time for frontline staff.