The RITT Team was established in 2014. We are an Older Adults Crisis team for both organic and functional illnesses. We are a multi-disciplinary team of healthcare professionals offering a holistic and intensive period of care. We support patients to remain in their home environment and to avoid, where possible, hospital admissions. We formulate and deliver person centered care to ensure the patients journey to recovery is seamless and timely.
Please briefly describe your project, group, team or service, outlining what you do and why it makes a difference.
The RITT Team was established in 2014. We are an Older Adults Crisis team for both organic and functional illnesses. We are a multi-disciplinary team of healthcare professionals offering a holistic and intensive period of care. We support patients to remain in their home environment and to avoid, where possible, hospital admissions. We formulate and deliver person centered care to ensure the patients journey to recovery is seamless and timely. We also encompass and SPoA (Single Point of Access) and CHL (Care Home Liasion). SPoA complete all of our initial assessments and pride themselves on being the first face of Mental Health – offering a compassionate and timely response to referrals. They offer routine appointments within 5 working days. We also recognise that our patients and carers know there illness, therefore we accept self-referrals from our patients when they are in crisis. Our CHL Team support patients with a suspected or diagnosed dementia who reside in a care home. They are a non-pharmacological service who support patients and care homes with the Behavioural and Psychological Symptoms of Dementia.
What makes your service stand out from others?
Here at Fylde Coast RITT we care for both organic and functional illnesses, relying on our highly skilled nurses to utilise their dynamic skill set to support patients through a multitude of problems. Whilst we have a target age of 65+, we are also an ageless service and assess people based on their symptoms and presentation. We function as a crisis team but support or patients group for 4-6 weeks to support and reduce the symptoms/presentation that led to their referral.
How do you ensure an effective, safe, compassionate and sustainable workforce?
I am very passionate about the health and wellbeing of our team members. We have Wellbeing Wednesdays, where we complete a variety of activities (usually supporting our local community) – to date we have done some sea defence work on the local beach, helped at the local Trinity Hospice Collection Centre and regularly have Team Dog visit. We have recently up skilled one of our nurses to NMP level and im in the process of supporting another to do the same. Im focused on ensuring the team are happy, well supported and have a real sense of achievement from being at work. My ethos is Happy Staff Happy Patients. I ensure all staff (regardless of banding) receive supervision every 4-6 weeks – within this we also encompass any further development ideas/opportunities, these can often be quite creative and really rely on us up skilling each other as we all have different backgrounds and experiences which are worth their weight in gold. We also recognise the times where we don’t get it quite right and we learn from our mistakes or misjudgements, we continuously improve and change, we grow with our patient group. We can never stand still. Our latest focus, fitting with all of the above is on retention, I recognise that that hard work that we complete is challenging and tough, but I also recognise the quality and dedication from our team members. I stand by having a happy workforce improves the quality of care that we deliver.
Who is in your team?
B6 RMN – 12 Full time x1 Part time B5 RMN – x1 Full time x1 partime B6 OT x4 fulltime B5 OT x1 full time B4 OTTI X1 fulltime B3 HCSW x3
How do you work with the wider system?
We try to ensure we have good working relationships with other health/social care sectors within our locality. We share our learning and offer training on what we do.
Do you use co-production approaches?
We continuously seek patient/family/carer feedback to improve our service. We offer a co-production approach within the CHL team who complete training for care home staff on how to best support patients with dementia, particularly around trigger identification.
Do you share your work with others? If so, please tell us how.
Not to date.
What outcome measures are collected, how do you use them and how do they demonstrate improvement?
PREMS Team Stats
Has your service been evaluated (by peer or academic review)?
We had a CQC visit not long after the team formed, we are expecting a further review this year.
How will you ensure that your service continues to deliver good mental health care?
The fundamentals of the teams success are delivered by the team. They are the reason the team works so well. We continuously recognise the changes within our population and change our practice accordingly, often needing to upskill in line with this change. We audit our case load and work hard to ensure we deliver our care in line with our SOP.
What aspects of your service would you share with people who want to learn from you?
SPOA – this team has started from the bottom and become the best. Each referral receives an MDT discussion on the day of referral meaning all referrals are seen in the appropriate time frame by the most appropriate professional.
Additional Questions
The following questions are an opportunity for you to provide further details on how you implement positive practice in your service delivery and how you ensure your service is advancing access and equalities.
How many people do you see?
Referrals from Jan 2018 – Dec 2018 – 1846
How do people access the service?
WE accept referrals from GPs, Nurses, social Workers and self referrals when in crisis. routinely we see people at home but also offer outpatients appointments. All new referrals are triaged on the same day by an MDT (SPOA nurse/NMP, Manager, Psychiatrist)
How long do people wait to start receiving care?
Routine referral – within 5-10 working days. Urgent within 24 hours. Immediate – same day – within 4 hours. Home Treatment/Crisis Element – within 24 hours CHL – scheduled care within 2 weeks.
How do you ensure you provide timely access?
All new referrals are triaged on the same day by an MDT (SPOA nurse/NMP, Manager, Psychiatrist)for appropriateness and urgency.
How do you identify the needs of a person using the service?
We offer a comprehensive patient centered initial assessment, with outcomes for both health and social professionals.
How do you meet the needs of people using the service and how could you improve on this?
We adhere to all NICE Guidelines and particularly the stepped care policy.
What support do you offer families and carers?
We highlight the need for carers assessments and support patients carers/families with carer burden.
Population details
We care for clients aged 65+ residing in the Blackpool, Fylde and Wyre Area.
Size of population and localities covered:
We have no limit on the size of our team caseload but we carry an average of 150 patients on our caseload.
Commissioner and providers
Commissioned by (e.g. name of local authority, CCG, NHS England): *
NHS
Provided by (e.g. name of NHS trust) or your organisation: *
