National Conference of Community Hospitals Association - ‘Leading Best Practices Today, Shaping the Healthcare of Tomorrow’

On the 10th October, the National Conference of Community Hospitals Association (CHA) convened for its first gathering since 2017. The conference brought together healthcare professionals, policymakers, and international guests. The two day event focused on "Leading Best Practices Today, Shaping the Healthcare of Tomorrow."

Colleagues from the Member Programme Team and our National Audit for Care at the End of Life Team were invited to attend the two day conference.

The Member Programme Team

Sarah Handby, Senior Project Manager, and Danny Iyoha, Project Manager, attended from the Member Programme Team. They ran workshops, showcasing the Network's community hospitals data, focusing on Emergency Care and Intermediate Care. They also facilitated structured discussions around the data requirements for community hospitals and explored how the Network can support this moving forward.

The whole conference highlighted all the amazing work done in community hospitals around the UK, and also internationally.

Sarah Handby had this to say:
”It was wonderful to speak with so many members of the Network and hear how they have used the data to support service improvement in their local area and share ideas for future iterations.”

If you have any suggestions on how we can support community hospitals within our member programme, please contact the team at nhsbn.members@nhs.net.

The National Audit of Care at the End of Life (NACEL) Team

In addition to plenary sessions, the conference featured workshops led by Joylin Brockett, Senior Project Manager at NHS Benchmarking Network and Dr Mary Miller, NACEL Clinical Lead and Consultant Palliative Medicine at Oxford University Hospitals Foundation Trust. The workshops attracted 40 participants and provided an introduction to the National Audit of Care at the End of Life (NACEL), covering eligibility criteria, driver diagrams, exclusion criteria, and audit elements which include:

• Four data streams

• A NACEL portal

• Data and Improvement Tool (DIT)

• Data Dashboards

Participants were particularly engaged in the live demonstration of the Data Improvement Tool (DIT). Examples of the case note review, bereavement survey (quality survey), staff survey and hospital level data on community results were shared which showed that community hospitals are doing better than the national picture on most metrics.

Participation figures for NACEL 2024 so far… Key questions posed during the workshops:

Feedback from participants highlighted strong interest in the data presented and excitement about potential quality improvement initiatives. However, there were also calls for consideration regarding the clarity of language used.

Takeaways:
A key takeaway from the conference was the lack of a national definition of a community hospital. Professor Chris Whitty noted that there are about 100 community hospitals in the UK, but no one keeps a complete list of them. Without this list, it is hard to know the impact of these institutions.

Commissioning for community hospitals varies widely across regions. Some facilities are classical locally embedded cottage hospitals with beds serving a rural community. A minority are part of acute Trusts, and many do not have inpatient beds focusing on acute healthcare and social care issues, but may not provide care at the end of life. This diversity underscores the need for a cohesive national strategy, which the CHA aims to develop.

The conference also emphasised the huge ambition for data and quality improvement within community hospitals. A special interest group supported by Q has been established, with recordings available on the CHA YouTube channel (@CommHospUK) for those unable to attend.