Hello

I am in a similar position as there are 3 of us as Older Adult Specialist Nurses and we are looking at PLAN. Would be interested in how you get on.

What is the size of hospital that the 3 of you cover?

How if at all  do you link in with Liaison Nurses for Adults under 65?

What medical support do you get?

There still seems a huge variation across the country as to the format of services and resources of services.

Hi,

Nice to hear from you.

Our liaison service here in Watford is very small. We have one Liaison Nurse at Band 6 working 30 hours per week (although the post is funded for 37.5), and one Associate Specialist providing two sessions, equating to four patients. The service is managed by the Specialist Mental Health Team for Older People, and is delegated to me - the Deputy Manager. Although I have no time specifically allocated to Liaison I do find time to provide management supervision to the Liaison Nurse and manage to see patients if required, likewise the Consultant Psychiatrist does not have any specific time allocated but has a keen interest in Liaison and finds time ti see patients and to provide clinical supervision to the Liaison Nurse.

Watford is the acute hospital for the west of Hertfordshire, the other two hospitals in Hemel and St. Albans are sub acute and smaller in size. The Liaison Nurse post for those sites is currently vacant.

There is a big variation in services across the country.

Do you see all patient's admitted to the hospital regardless of their home address? Do you cover MAU/AAU/CDU and A+E? We do see anyone physically admitted to the hospital regardless of their home address, but I know some liaison services will only see patients from their geographical PCT area. We do not cover A+E, but have started to cover the 120 bed AAU, but are helped out by A+E Liaison in AAU.

Best Wishes

Hi

Mark here, Team Leader Older Adults Lincoln.

We cover one large Acute Trust here in Lincolnshire that covers three localities Lincoln, Grantham and Boston. Each area has two B6 liaison staff who work 9-5 seven days a week 365 days a year.

I line manage the Lincoln locality which encompasses 26 acute wards and we also support A&E, MAU. The other areas have roughly a half and a third of the beds compared to Lincoln. The service is predominantly for people over the age of 65 although we do not age-disciminate for patients with dementia. On average the service receives around 50 referrals a month with a CQUIN working target of assessment within one working day ( this is difficult!) The service works closely with our CMHT who cover a number of intermediate care beds throughout the County. Patients under 65 are supported by a crisis team, although recently we became one division.

The liaison service is nurse led with access to three consultants including two Staff Grade practitioners. There are no dedicated sessions allocated as part of the contract, although this is needed/wanted.

Most of the work centres around mental health education, assessment and advice, being part of the DST process and also issues around MH capacity.

I do particularly like the PLAN process although it is not used to benchmark the service as i suggested that our service is part of the current CQUIN's that include a number of metrics.

I agree with all the comments about the disparity in service provision across the country, although i'm sure the commissioning process also works in many different ways!

Happy to share information, CQUIN's, OP policies if needed

Thanks Mark

Hi Karon I'm Barry and I work in the midlands within the voluntary sector supporting the families of older adults with Mental heath issues.  We are well supported by the local community MH teams but not by our local acute hospitals, which I am finding it very difficult to build any relationships.

Do you have any relationships with the third sector support groups that you utlise? If not what support would help you?

Barry

Previously karon whitehead wrote:

Hi nice to hear from others out there. I have been an acute hospital nurse for 8 yrs band 6, until recently i had a support worker, but she was shuttled back to the wards.

So now its just me with some occasional support from an associate specialist

I work within an single acute trust hospital but which is part of a 3 hospital trust Dewsbury hospital mid Yorkshire trust

Our referral differs every month, but after 8n yrs we have trained them well LoL

We offer 2 full day workshops every year last year was 3 due to demand

also training on the wards, i also send out a newsletter every quarter to update people and also have a page/site on the acute trusts intranet site with lots of local/national strategies

We go to A/E and MAU and all relevant wards who may have someone over 65 yrs old

we have a 24 working hr response rate for urgent referrals and 3 working day response for none urgent