Inter‐professional teams (or multidisciplinary teams) often work best when physically based within the same location, allowing for easier communication and an appreciation of each other’s roles. These teams are made up of doctors, nurses, allied health professionals, social care services and, importantly but sometimes overlooked, the third sector of voluntary services, which can provide extra support and expertise. As with all team working, role dynamics are crucial to success. Traditionally, doctors have often been seen as the leaders of inter‐professional teams; however, within the community, district nurses are increasingly taking the leadership role as the key coordinators of care. They will be the first health professional within the team to meet with the patient with initial referrals coming from GPs, families and carers or other district nursing teams. Their responsibility is then to ensure that the right team members are informed of the patient’s needs and involved in planning their care in the most efficient, safe and appropriate manner.
Assessment and referral
Patients with complex and enduring health problems are increasing in number and the degree of frailty within the ageing population is apparent to all health professionals. District nurses may well have the required advanced assessment skills, but the size of general caseloads makes managing the complexities of inter‐professional referrals time‐consuming and this runs the risk of being uncoordinated. District nurses must have a strong understanding of their local population’s health needs, including people who may be socially marginalised.
Inter‐professional working is very rewarding for professionals working within these teams. They are a cohesive working group with clear goals for excellent patient care. Nurses work particularly well within such teams; however the skills required are at an advanced level. Nurses who are involved in the complex assessment process will have undertaken further education, often holding a recognised specialist practice qualification. A true understanding of community care provision is imperative and a working knowledge of how ongoing services are provided helps with complex decision‐making. Nurses without this knowledge may well possess excellent assessment skills, but may be more reliant on the input of secondary care.
Referrals to allied health professionals, including occupational therapists, physiotherapists, or speech and language therapists, will ensure that the patient’s ability to remain safely within their own home is considered from every angle (Figure 10.1). The medical registrar or consultant provides the necessary specialist intervention and social care can be organised to provide vital support with daily living. These packages are often provided as a short‐term intervention, giving the social worker time to assess and organise an ongoing package of care. This integrated approach has proven vital in managing patients discharged to the community after an admission for Covid‐19.
Patients are often initially referred to district nursing services when they are at risk of falling at home. The nurse needs to be able to undertake a holistic assessment using a range of assessment tools. The key elements of an assessment in this situation will involve the nurse carrying out a full physical, psychological, social and environmental assessment. Their role then is to assess, plan and implement care in a personalised manner. Computer systems are crucial to the success of high‐quality care delivery and these continue to develop, with better communication referral packages being introduced into the health system. Access to a patient’s past medical history and prescription drugs is imperative within the initial assessment phase. Timely care can only be provided when information can be shared instantly.
Nurses undertaking highly specialist initial assessment roles can subsequently miss the opportunity to ‘nurse’, as once the intense period of the assessment is over, any ongoing nursing care will be referred on to the district nursing team within the locality. However, other professionals such as the physiotherapist and occupational therapist may well have ongoing interaction with the patient, developing longer therapeutic relationships (Figure 10.2).
The third sector and carers
Working with the third sector has added to the diversity and richness of services, with befriending schemes – Age UK and the British Red Cross for example – being crucial within a true inter‐professional team. They can provide the small but important services that may fall outside the remit of either health or social services. They are also able to support carers, who themselves may be elderly and may, possibly, have previously been reliant on the person who has now become the patient. Carers, as is increasingly well understood, are the vital backbone of personal social care within the UK; however, many of them are still not recognised for the important role they provide within the community.
Good inter‐professional working can assist in meeting NHS targets, but it also keeps patients in their own homes for longer, with ongoing care being passed back to their GP and local district nursing team after a crisis has been averted.
11 Safer caseloads: service planning and caseload allocation
Celine Grundy, QN, Helen Wheeler, Paula Wood, QN, and Rachel Hogan, QN
Figure 11.1 Safe caseload management methods and tools.
Source: National Quality Board (2018).
Box 11.1 Recommendations to support nurse staffing in the district nursing service.
1 Organisations should work together locally, to define safety in the context of district nursing and agree a suite of metrics to provide assurance of safety and quality across the system.
2 Include metrics regarding: patient outcomes, patient safety, patient experience, staff experience with system‐wide measures. Standardise collection and monitoring of metrics.
3 Plan the multi‐professional workforce to provide safe caseload management around the agreed definitions of safety and quality.
4 Use technology to support remote monitoring and a more agile workforce.
5 Use an evidence‐informed decision support tool, triangulated with professional judgement and comparison with relevant peers.
6 Undertake an annual strategic staffing review of all healthcare professional groups.
7 Review a comprehensive staffing report after six months to ensure workforce plans are still appropriate.
8 Review a local dashboard of quality indicators to support decision‐making on a monthly basis.
9 Review local recruitment and retention priorities regularly and maximise flexible employment options and efficient deployment of staff.
10 Introduce a process to determine additional uplift requirements based on the needs of patients and local demography.
11 Introduce an escalation process in case staffing does not deliver the outcomes identified in the appropriate plan.
12 Respond to changing patient requirements and new ways of working/new care models.
Source: National Quality Board (2018).
Box 11.2 Key factors for work allocation.
Patient need