There are generally more failures than success stories when it comes to launching and maintaining community based urgent care services across the country so what have the team in Rochdale done differently? To kick off the new year, Ben is joined by GP Dr Zalan Alam, Clinical Director for the hugely successful and pioneering Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale Urgent Community Care Team who gives an inspiring insight into their five-year journey to date; from establishing a business case, to taking a more flexible approach to their service specification, where they have grown and continually adapted, the lessons learned and their future aspirations.

 

Introduction (34 secs)

 

Zalan’s role and an overview of the service model (51 secs)

 

Establishment of the service and some key factors in its success to date (1 min 56 secs)

 

The business case (3 mins 7 secs)

 

A typical patient journey (4 mins 58 secs)

 

Capacity challenges? (6 mins 29 secs)

 

Impact of Covid (7 mins 11 secs)

 

Integrating social prescribers (8 mins 50 secs)

 

The five-year evolution of the service (9 mins 50 secs)

 

Lessons learned (11 mins 30 secs)

 

Zalan’s thoughts on integrated care (13 mins 4 secs)

 

Cultivating a shared vision (14 mins 57 secs)

 

An alternative approach to the service specification (15 mins 33 secs)

 

What’s next? (16 mins 36 secs)

 

Finding out more (18 mins 14 secs)

 

 

Heywood, Middleton & Rochdale’s Intermediate Care Team website

 

Contact points for the service as follows:

 

Dr Zalan Alam Clinical Director for Intermediate Tier Services 

 

Wendy Antil Service Manager 

 

Ruth Chamberlain Directorate Manager

 

The link to Zalan’s first podcast episode is here