Integrated Care Systems (ICS)
Our Immedicare service helps improve the quality of care for care home residents by reducing the need for referral to other healthcare professionals, including GP surgeries, hospitals and ambulance services.
How it works
The Immedicare service supports care home staff when they need additional support with clinical treatment for residents. We offer consultations with NHS professionals in our Digital Care Hub via video call 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
Improving care for residents
Care home residents remain one of the most vulnerable populations in our society with complex health and social care needs. We provide a vital link between care homes and local services, ensuring the right care for residents.
Our highly specialised support covers medicines safety, falls prevention, wound care, end of life care and nutrition and hydration.
Reducing pressure on local health and care services
As the number of people cared for in nursing and residential homes continues to rise, so do the unnecessary emergency admissions to hospital. 41% of emergency admissions to hospitals from care homes are avoidable. Access to our Immedicare service helps more care home residents get the professional clinical care they need at home in their community.
Additionally, our Immedicare service has been proven to reduce calls to GP practices, meaning local primary care staff can focus on their patients in most need. Care home teams can call us for support with managing many conditions without needing to escalate to the GP surgery.
Supporting the care home workforce
Immedicare offers care homes immediate access to an experienced NHS team of clinicians, pharmacists, nurses, paramedics and healthcare support workers who have extensive expertise in urgent, emergency, community and palliative care.
Our expert team can provide much needed capacity and professional support, reducing risk and providing reassurance to residents and their families. This means timely access to advice for care home staff and their residents.
A service fit for the future
The Immedicare service is designed to meet the current and future needs of patients, health and care providers and NHS senior leaders. We help to move care into the community, we prioritise digital over analogue and support local neighbourhoods to move from treating ill health to preventing it.
Training and development for staff
We know that recruitment and retention of care home staff can sometimes be difficult. Immedicare work as an extension of care home teams, and we invest in their training and development. This helps to build the capability of the care home workforce within the areas we work with.
Over 1,000 care home staff members have accessed our learning and development. Topics include falls prevention, medicines safety, diabetes care and common musculoskeletal injuries. We have a regular monthly schedule of virtual sessions, accessible to care home staff at all levels.
Working in partnership with you
We work closely with our care homes and local clinicians, particularly GPs, and we can tailor our service based on local need. This is important throughout the implementation process as well as on an ongoing basis. Our clinical consultations are supported by access to information from the patient’s local GP record. We have a proven track record of providing safe, high-quality care and we have been working with the NHS to support care homes for over a decade.
Key service features
Our range of services can support your ICS to increase resilience through:
- Reducing 999 calls and ambulance conveyances
- Reducing avoidable hospital admissions
- Providing local health and care integrated data – supporting all place partners to better plan for the health, public health and social care needs of your area
- Data analytics and reporting to track progress and evidence impact at local levels
- Upskilling care home workforce through our training programme – supporting recruitment and retention within your place
- Linking directly with existing clinical systems – full interoperability making it easier to engage clinicians at a local level
- Comprehensive directory of services within your partnership place
How to commission our services
Immedicare is available through the NHS Shared Business Services (SBS) – Technology Enabled Care Services Framework, providing organisations with a fully compliant and simple to use procurement solution. Please contact us for more details.
