This episode's guest is Libby Boorman, learning disabilities nurse in our community team for adults with learning disabilities, who talks about the STOMP programme with Andrea Trill, our medical director for integrated and primary care at Somerset FT and a GP by background, who uses her experience to ask the questions a GP would want to know.

The peri-operative service helps patients from the moment surgery is contemplated, through the surgery and recovery, optimising health and wellbeing for patients scheduled for major elective surgery. Their aim is to identify patients as early as possible to support them to be as well as possible before their surgery date and reduce cancellations and re-admissions.

Jacqui Wilson, senior operation manager for peri-operative services, Louise Lewis, lead nurse for peri-op, and Tom Teare, consultant anaesthetist and clinical lead for peri-operative medicine for the trust, have a discussion with Andrea Trill about their service. Andrea is our  medical director for integrated and primary care at Somerset FT and a GP by background, and uses her experience to drill down into what a GP wants to know.

Johnny Scott, children and young people participation worker joins us for the second episode of our newest podcast ‘On the Move’, which lets you catch up on a snippit of the latest team brief before Lizzie House, district nurse transformation lead, interviews Johnny about his ‘finding solutions group’ and the benefits of patient / service user feedback in continuous improvement of our services in Somerset.

Johnny explains “Without listening, we don’t know what we don’t know. And who better to tell us than the people using the service?” Take 15 minutes today on the move, commuting to your next patient or completing your admin, and hear more.

19 - 25 May is Dementia Action Week, so Andrea is joined by Helen Andrew, operational service manager for the central dementia service for Somerset FT and Cindy Firs, head of partnership at SPARK Somerset, overseeing the dementia partnership. 

The team explains how the dementia service works, talking through the assessment, diagnosis and post diagnostic support visit, and what support is available through the Alziemers Society with voluntary organisations like memory cafe's, carers support, support groups for patients in the patient's local area.

On connecting the dots this month, Andrea, medical director for integrated and primary care at Somerset FT and a GP by background, is joined by Ali VanLaar, associate director of mental health and learning disability care, and Emma Lawton, liberty protection safeguards/mental capacity act lead (nmc), talking about the ‘people who matter to patients project’.

The project focuses on improving information between a patient's healthcare professionals and the people that matter to them, such as family, friends and loved ones.

“People will keep trying to say the same thing, and feel anxious, unless they really feel like they have been heard...”

Listen to our March podcast, with a snippet from our trust Team Brief until 4:00, and then Lizzie House, district nursing service transformation and development lead, interviews Katharine and Georgina on their role, teamwork and what goes bump in the night. 

Our Somerset NHS Foundation Trust on the move podcast offers an insight into our colleagues and their roles, released monthly.

In this episode, Andrea, medical director for integrated and primary care at Somerset FT and a GP by background, is joined by Andrew Prouse, director of pharmacy at Somerset FT, including our sites such as Musgrove Park Hospital, Yeovil District Hospital, mental health, community hospitals and community services.

He talks about how medicines are prescribed in hospital, including the differences between each site and challenges they face working across different systems, teams and locations, and the work they have been doing to improve, including plans for 2025. Recorded in November 2024.

These episodes aim to share information between primary and secondary care in a new easy to listen to format and spread knowledge.

Marc McDonagh, Head of Psychological Professions, talks about the benefits psychological professions bring across the wide range of services Somerset Foundation Trust offers with our host Dr Andrea Trill, medical director, integrated and primary care.

With around 200 - 300 colleagues, we have paediatric psychologists, neuropsychologists working in stroke services and psychological wellbeing practitioners in talking therapies to name a few.

Dr Andrea Trill, our medical director for integrated and primary care, along with special guest Dr Jon Upton – a GP at St James Medical Centre, in Taunton and a GPwER (GP with extended responsibility) in dermatology and dermatology lead at the Integrated Care Board.

This very first podcast explores the development of our new dermatology service in Somerset, and we hope we’ve managed to answer some of the questions that our primary and secondary care colleagues may have.

Tom Lister, Lead Healthcare Scientist at Somerset NHS Foundation Trust, talks about healthcare scientists, of which the trust has over 200.  Scientists across the NHS are responsible for around 80% of diagnoses’. In our trust you can find specialists in cardiology, audiology, respiratory, radiotherapy, medical electronics, data science and more.