Our Achievements

We were proud to win a multi million pound bid from the second wave of the Prime Ministers Challenge fund aimed at extending patients access to health care in Richmond. The legacy of this project was intended to transform the way services for general practice patients were delivered in the borough.

Achieving and running  the EASTiR project for the Prime Ministers Challenge Fund achieved:

• A National First for interoperability of clinical systems in Primary Care
• Four Hubs for extended access to Primary Care Services for the People of the Borough of Richmond offering thousands of additional primary care appointments
• Access to senior Dr support for members of the Community staff
• Multiple presentations Nationally outlining the achievements of the EASTiR scheme including an invitation to 10 Downing Street to explain our successes
• National awards for the work we have done on interoperability
• Setting up and running the Heath Help Now app for  NHS patients in Richmond
• Developing the joint venture with colleagues at HRCH which is developing on-going projects to enable us to reap the benefits of working -at-scale in Primary Care in Richmond.

The RGPA have formed a joint venture with our community partner Hounslow and Richmond Community Healthcare NHS Trust (HRCH) to modernise the way healthcare is delivered in Richmond, both in the community and hospital setting. We believe that too often care can be experienced as fragmented, and designed to meet the needs of the organisation rather than the patient.

We have redesigned pathways to deliver care that is meaningful to patients. To this end we measure and are measured by the outcomes that matter to them, rather than by how many episodes of activity we undertake.

Richmond Community Healthcare in Partnership (RCHiP) is a new ground-breaking new partnership between GPs from Richmond GP Alliance (RGPA) and Hounslow and Richmond Community Healthcare NHS Trust (HRCH).

As part of this new initiative which launched in December 2016, Richmond GPs and community NHS clinicians are working together more closely than ever before to deliver better out-of-hospital community services for adult patients.

Key to the success of the new partnership is achieving the “outcomes” that matter most to patients. Clinicians from the new partnership have been working with patients and local people to identify the health needs and outcomes that really matter to them. This work has been used to make improvements to “patient pathways” for the various community services involved.

A “patient pathway” is the route that a patient will take from their first contact with the NHS (usually through a GP), through referral to other health services, to the completion of their treatment.

Areas of focus

The new RCHiP partnership will initially focus on improving health services and patient pathways for the following community health services:

• Cardiology
• Diabetes
• End of life / palliative care
• Frail elderly care services
• Respiratory care
• Urgent care services

Find out more about Richmond Community Healthcare in Partnership

Grant Oliver won the prestigious Special Recognition Award at the Public Sector Paperless Awards in his role as IT Project Manager, Richmond GP Alliance (RGPA). They nominated Grant for his “tireless contribution to the transformation of digital practice in Richmond”. They are the first organisation to deliver an end-to-end interoperability solution that benefits the local community.

The RGPA use Vision’s interoperable patient record and appointment sharing solutions. This gives GPs working at their extended appointment hubs read and write access to every local patient’s record, irrespective of whether the patient is registered at a practice that uses a Vision or EMIS system.

“This award is a result of the great team effort and recognises the enthusiasm of the GPs in RGPA. Vision have provided an innovative solution that delivers end-to-end interoperability. It has provided considerable benefits for patients and significantly reduced the volume of paper flowing through the system, making patient care quicker and safer.”

Atrial Fibrillation (AF) is a condition where the rhythm of the heart becomes irregular. It is one of the major risk factors for a person having a stroke. If the AF is identified then simple medical intervention can be offered which dramatically reduces the likelihood of stroke in that patient.

It is crucial therefore for doctors to be able to identify which amongst their patients has Atrial Fibrillation since it can often occur without any symptoms noted by the patient.

The prevalence of Atrial Fibrillation (AF) in the borough is 1.4%. This compares with the national average of 1.7%. Having a made a successful bid in 2017 to the Health Innovation Network  the RGPA  managed to secure  18 Kardia Devices (which are a highly portable and simple to use device that can detect AF)  and 10 Watch BP machines for the Richmond Borough. It was hoped that use of these devices would increase the detection of AF and thereby reduce the incidence of strokes caused by AF.

The BP machines have been given to the District Nurses in both patches, the Falls Clinic and the Diabetic Nurses.

The Kardia Devices were distributed to various practices  across the patch after training in March and April of 2018. The project has been running for 6 months and in that time  582 ECG were undertaken and 40 patients with possible AF were detected.

The average detection rate is 100 ECG in > 65yrs for one AF.  Currently we appear to be picking up 1 AF for every 15 ECG undertaken.

The project will be running for 12months. It is hoped in the forthcoming months with flu clinics planned we will be able to check patients at the same time for AF increasing our detection rate further.

British General Practice has amongst the most advanced information technology for health care service anywhere in the world. Despite this, different programs used by different GP practices can not always talk to each other.

The RGPA in partnership with the medical technology firm Vision were the first nationally to provide a solution allowing remote working GPs to read from and write to a patient’s medical record. This is irrespective of which clinical system the home GP practice uses.

We use this technology to allow medical staff working on various projects to have access to the patient’s medical records and to write suggestions for patient care.

This can be read within seconds by the home GP practice making safe and effective health care delivery at scale a reality. This allows commissioners to consider the provision of services within the GP surgery that would have previously required a trip to hospital. There are many innovations nationally that are able to benefit from this technology and the range of project continues to grow.

Video Screens

We are in the process of placing video screens in each GP practice. They are running a mixture of content which includes Public Health information, practice information, information on local services, information on correct use of resources, as well as limited and targeted local advertising

Video Conferencing

Video conferencing equipment has been installed in each practice. They are currently being used as an efficient way of running RGPA meetings and engaging with practices. We are planning to start clinical trials of video appointments shortly.