Health

People in east Kent will benefit from a new integrated NHS 111 and GP-led out of hours service which also offers innovative support for patients with complex needs.

The new service combines 111, the NHS non-emergency number, with the out of hours service, providing care for patients who need to see a GP urgently when their practice is closed overnight or at the weekend.

This will be further enhanced with a care navigation service which will help patients with more complex needs remain at home where possible.

Care navigation involves healthcare professionals looking at the holistic health and wellbeing needs of a patient. They can make referrals to a number of different services for each patient, depending on their needs, such as to a district nurse to dress wounds and to an occupational therapist to carry out an equipment assessment. (more…)

What is a Personal Health Budget?

A Personal Health Budget (PHB) is an amount of money to support the identified healthcare and well-being needs of an individual.

PHBs enable patients with long-term conditions and disabilities to have greater choice and control over their healthcare and the support they receive. PHBs are built around a care plan and outcomes that are agreed with one or more health professionals.

How can a Personal Health Budget help?

Personal Health Budgets aim to give people greater choice, control and flexibility over their health and wellbeing needs by enabling them to work with a healthcare professional to identify the best treatment and services to meet their needs at a time and place that suits them.  This can improve a person’s satisfaction, experience and outcomes. (more…)

The east Kent mental health commissioning team are keen to involve people in developing their work with mental health.  We want to hear from you about your priorities for mental health and how these services should look in the future. We want to know what you really think.

Do you have views about local mental health services? Have you used them? Avoided them but needed them? You are the experts in what works and what needs to change. We’d really like to hear from you to help develop our priorities for the future and improve services.

The east Kent mental health commissioning team is introducing co-production in their work, which means including people affected by mental health issues. We’d like to invite you to become involved in this future work by leaving your email address at the bottom of this survey so the team can contact you. (more…)