05/04/2024 15:22:51
World Health Day 2024 | Healthcare Awareness
At Blue Stream Academy, we want to emphasise the significance of World Health Day 2024, taking place on April 7th. This crucial event, facilitated by the World Health Organization (WHO), serves as a vital platform for spotlighting pressing health issues worldwide. Its mission is to create discussions, and debates, and increase awareness surrounding global healthcare matters.
This year's focus revolves around advocating for access to high-quality health services, education, and information. This theme, ‘My Health, My Right’, underscores the fundamental rights every individual possesses concerning their health. Among these rights are:
- Access to safe and quality healthcare without any form of discrimination.
- Assurance of privacy and confidentiality regarding personal health information.
- The right to be informed about treatment options and to provide informed consent.
- Upholding bodily autonomy and integrity.
- Understanding how to navigate the healthcare system to find the relevant help.
Pressing Issue with Access to Quality Healthcare
Health and social care needs are changing, people are living longer and there are an increasing number of people living with long-term, complex conditions and needs. Consequently, healthcare services are experiencing heightened demands, resulting in delays in service and difficulty navigating the relevant help. According to research from the Quality Care Commission (CQC):
- Accessibility remains a significant barrier, especially for individuals with protected equality characteristics. Many individuals encounter obstacles throughout their healthcare journey, struggling to access the necessary care in a timely manner.
- The backlog for planned care and treatment is reaching unprecedented levels, with over 7 million people listed on elective care waiting lists as of June 2023. This figure may underestimate the true extent of the issue, as some individuals struggle to obtain referrals from their general practitioners (GPs).
- Within the community, challenges persist in securing appointments with GPs and dentists, leading some individuals to resort to urgent and emergency care services as their initial point of contact or delaying seeking help until their conditions deteriorate.
- Delays in receiving essential care are prolonged at hospitals, with a significant increase in the proportion of respondents reporting waiting over an hour to be examined by a nurse or doctor, from 28% in 2020 to 51% in 2022.
- Inadequate capacity in adult social care exacerbates delays in discharging individuals from hospitals. Ongoing staffing shortages and financial pressures in residential and community services further compromise the quality of care provided, placing some individuals at risk of not receiving the support they require.
How To Help Alleviate Pressure and Provide Better Care
Having services and trained people in place is not enough, what matters is how people (individuals, teams, services and systems) work together co-operatively so that people know when and how they can get access to:
- the right help
- at the right time
- in the right place.
Healthcare Navigation
Health navigation is a high impact action which has benefits for the patient and General Practice. This innovation provides patients with a first point of contact which directs them to the most appropriate source of help.
By providing the correct service it could allow more patients to call up and not wait with an issue. Also alleviate NHS pressures so both parties are happy, and the patient receives the care they require and have the right to.
There is emerging evidence that health navigators, in a variety of settings, can provide effective practical, social support, signposting to interventions and providing a link between community and health-social services. Evidence suggests navigation services can enhance patient and carer experience, reduce unnecessary hospital readmissions, and promote independent living at home.
Benefits for Patients
- improves appointment availability
- reduces low-value consultations and onward referrals
- shorter wait to get to see the most appropriate person.
Benefits for the Practice
- frees GP time
- makes more appropriate use of each team member's skills
- reduces internal referrals.
The Role of an Essential Navigator
An Essential Level navigator would be a non-clinical navigator and could be a receptionist, health champion or pharmacy technician.
At this level people may have no or minimal experience of working in a health social-voluntary care setting; or some experience already working within administrative roles.
Essential competencies are relevant to all non-clinical staff in contact with people, including those at the ‘front-line’ first point of contact with the public, whether face to face or over the telephone.
Key Functions
Effective Communication
Effective communication underpins person-centered care and helps build lasting, trusting relationships. Health navigation requires people to be able to communicate effectively, in verbal and written form, with a wide range of people from different cultural and organisational backgrounds, including health, social and voluntary sectors.
Enabling Access to Services
Health navigation involves signposting and enabling people to access appropriate services, based on their needs and preferences, from a wide range of organisations and sectors. This may not necessarily be best met by traditional health or social service professionals. The ‘local wisdom’ of available services should be built up by those in navigation roles and teams, with a spirit of ‘persistent and positive curiosity’.
Personalisation
Personalisation is a term more commonly used in social care, and is applicable to all service sectors. Personalisation is about taking an approach which supports a person’s choice, wishes and needs as far as possible, enabling them to be in control of their own life. Health navigation seeks to provide support and care, defined by a person's holistic needs, not simply standardised to their condition or diagnosis. Support is tailored to the needs and aspirations of the individual.
Co-ordination and Integration
Health navigation will involve co-ordination of care and support, to ensure a person’s experience across health, social and voluntary services is as ‘seamless’ as possible. All people involved in support, including patient/carer should know who is a key point of contact for help and who is responsible for their care. This is especially important and must be timely, when there are significant changes in a person’s needs e.g. sudden deterioration in health or transition of care between providers.
Building and Sustaining Professional Relationships
Health navigation is a person-centered approach, therefore if care and support truly wraps around a person’s needs, integrated support must cut across boundaries and reach out to wider agencies within health, social and voluntary sectors.
Relationships underpin effective inter-boundary working and are skills people in navigation roles need to develop. The ability to engage and sustain key working relationships is fundamental to work with patients, their family and with MDT members.
Personal Development and Learning
Individuals need to be committed to lifelong learning and enthusiastic to apply new knowledge and skills. People who are in care navigation roles learn significantly through experience and working within local contexts - therefore reflection on practice, for the individual and as teams, is of core importance to personal as well as service development.
Handling Data and Information
Accurate and accessible information and data underpins effective care navigation. Failures in communication between organisations, sectors and patients/carers can lead to disjointed and poor care. Individuals who work to provide effective care navigation need to be able to appropriately use relevant electronic records and databases to access, input, store and retrieve information. Data is also important for service evaluation improvement.
Professionalism
For health navigation, core competencies which attempt to capture some essence of professional behaviour, attitudes and attributes are summarised here. These are rooted in the ethical, moral and legal aspects of care and support, grounded in the principles of patient-centered care.
Commitment to develop expertise, self-awareness, limitations of scope of practice and working with integrity are some important features. This is mirrored across all levels of health navigation.
Final Remarks
During World Health Day 2024, it's vital to emphasise everyone's right to quality healthcare. Under the theme ‘My Health, My Right’, this year's focus highlights the importance of fair access to healthcare services.
Despite this emphasis, challenges persist, including difficulty accessing services and long waiting times. Health navigation offers a promising solution, guiding individuals to appropriate resources and improving appointment availability. By training individuals for this role and fostering coordination across healthcare sectors, we can work towards ensuring everyone receives the care they deserve.
Want to Learn More About Essential Healthcare Navigation?
If you're interested in learning more about healthcare navigation,
please click here to get started. Alternatively, you can reach out to us via email at info@bluestreamacademy.com or speak with a team member at 01773 822549.