Rochdale Intermediate Care Service held up as national example of best practice

Photo: Google, DigitalGlobe

Tudor Court in Heywood is part of the Intermediate Tier Service, offering a short-term step-up option away from hospital

A partnership bringing together Rochdale Care Organisation (part of the Northern Care Alliance NHS Group), Rochdale Borough Council and adult social care, HMR Clinical Commissioning Group, GP Federation, and BARDOC, is being held up as an example of best practice nationally for how to transform intermediate care into an award winning service.

Intermediate care services provide patients with support for a short period of time in the community and in their own homes to help them recover and increase their independence.

The Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale (HMR) Intermediate Tier Service (ITS) is now featured in NICE’s (the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) Shared Learning Collection to be used by NHS organisations across the country as an example of best practice.

Shona McCallum, Medical Director at Rochdale Care Organisation, which runs Rochdale Infirmary and community services, said: “This partnership really shows what can be achieved when organisations with a shared purpose and goal come together to make improvements to a service, and what we have now is an incredible award winning intermediate care service.”

Dr Zalan Alam, Clinical Director for Intermediate Care at Rochdale Care Organisation, said: “It’s fantastic to see all the hard work that has gone into transforming our intermediate care services in Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale recognised, and now highlighted, as an example of best practice in NICE’s Shared Learning Collection. I am incredibly proud of everyone involved in this long term project over the last five years, and the end result is that our patients are now getting the highest quality care possible.”

At the start of the intermediate care service transformation project, audit data showed that 58 percent of patients could have potentially been cared for in an alternate setting, namely a more robust Intermediate Care Service.

The new look intermediate care service for Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale has now successfully reduced the length of stay for patients from an average of 35 days to between 11 and 14 days.

Over 90 percent of patients that could have ended up in hospital taking up beds in the past are now either looked after in a community facility or in the comfort of their own homes.