When COVID-19 hit, MPFT needed a fast, reliable way to keep services running, so they teamed up with Nasstar to roll out OneConsultation.
CLIENT
Midlands Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (MPFT)
INDUSTRY
Healthcare
SERVICE
Cloud
The client
Midlands Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (MPFT) is an integrated organisation that provides physical and mental health, learning disabilities and adult social care services. As well as serving the Midlands region, it also runs Inclusion, a specialist care group, which covers much of England.
The challenges
MPFT was in the same position and was already experiencing staff shortages due to illness and precautionary self-isolating measures. It realised that to avoid interruption to its many care services, it needed to provide service users with a virtual option as quickly as possible.
Step forward Nasstar which had already announced it would provide OneConsultation free of charge to NHS Trusts, for one month and installed within 72 hours. In doing so, it ensured the Trust had the tools needed to deliver healthcare expertise without patients leaving their home. MPFT decided to take up the offer to build upon an initial pilot set up, and rapidly expand this to cover all MPFT’s service areas.
Our goal
The outcome
Users now benefit from a ‘blended approach’ whereby as the first lockdown period ended, services continued to be run virtually whilst also providing a traditional face to face option.
Some Trust services delivered more consultation sessions overall with the shift to virtual consultations, despite having fewer clinicians delivering the services because of illness, shielding, and looking after their own children.
MPFT expect take-up to increase even when the pandemic is over as patients have seen the benefits of video consultations during lockdown and are wanting to use it more, despite having the option to return to in-person sessions.
One commented, “I think people would attend their appointments more because they don’t have the anxiety of visiting some of these buildings.”
"In March 2020, we had just under 25,000 contacts with our substance misuse services. Through working digitally, over the telephone and face-to-face before lockdown, we had nearly 30,000 engagements - quite a substantial increase. The data suggests that we’re engaging more of our service users, more often, which is fantastic. I can guarantee that we are now seeing people that we’ve never seen before, because of this new digital offer. Once the face-to-face option is available again, some service users will want to use that over digital offerings."
David Cupit
Commercial Development and Information Lead, Inclusion
•Midlands Partnership NHS Foundation Trust
