Lincolnshire NHS Rapid Response Respiratory Service

Have you heard of NHS@home or virtual wards before? I have written about it before. Here is a link to the original article: https://haloabletec.blogspot.com/2021/10/nhshome.html

I have my home environment and care tailored to my specific needs and I have a comfortable home. I have everything at home including hoists, profiling bed, accessible toilet and bathing, and it is still my home. My needs unless absolutely critical often cause problems in getting me to and at hospitals, particularly as I need extensive one to one care. This means carers are having to stay with me in hospital as hospitals just do not seem to be able to manage.

Thankfully with more and more services being provided through virtual wards or via NHS@home, hospitalisation is becoming less and less necessary and I am more much more comfortable. It takes time to set up but it can be done via a personal budget and a system that allows flexibility.

Since my original article, I have been introduced to another great service which I wanted to mention. As part of my medical condition I often get chest infections. These in the past have been disastrous for me and involved long hospitalisations and a lot of discomfort. 

I have had a number of visits from The Lincolnshire Children and Young People Rapid Response Respiratory Service. this team, they have always been extremely responsive and I feel that they are an essential service for Lincolnshire at present. It is currently just for young people but they are trying to extend this service out to everyone. 

In order to assist me, they have come out a couple of times after discussions, they are very quick in responding, coming up with workable solutions, answering queries and offering urgent referrals.

For me this has meant a much more streamlined service locally, my chest consultant is in Nottingham which is an hour’s journey for me, travelling for me is not easy. Thankfully nowadays most visits are over the internet. With the new respiratory service added on most things including ordering equipment, advice, and even a couple of sessions of in-house training from the team for carers on chest compressions and using a Nebuliser (which they allow me to video so I can keep as a record for future training for carers) are much more simple. Personality wise they also seem to be a great team of people which always make a service better for me. Nothing seems too difficult and they are always happy to answer questions. 

For me the main purpose of this team will be to call on them at short notice (they're a 24 hours reaponse service, and to date have met this for every query). Which means they will come out quickly and check on me to ensure that everything is done that needs doing and it saves a difficult trip for me to the local hospital,  all  done in the comfort of my own home.

Access to this great service can be found via https://www.lincolnshirechildrenstherapyservices.nhs.uk/our-services/rapid-response

The website link above details the referral criteria. As I said they are flexible and accept self-referrals, referrals from GP, allied health and other medical professionals. 

If personalised services like this continue to be developed that meet patients needs, I can see will be a positive for the NHS as it reduces long term and costly stays in hospitals and gives people more flexibility and independence choice and control in their care.