Get voting now for an important initiative which helped residents in Forth Valley care homes, who were suffering from Covid-19, receive medication as quickly as possible.
The Forth Valley Primary Care Multidisciplinary team’s efforts have been shortlisted in the People’s Choice category of the Scottish Health Awards, after a mammoth task to support more than 2,000 residents in the area’s 66 care homes.
You can vote now via the Scottish Health Award’s website (just scroll down the homepage to you get to the People’s Choice Award and click vote beside the Forth Valley entry).
Voting is open now and closes on Friday 8th October 2021 at 5.00pm so please encourage colleagues, friends and family to vote for our local team before the closing date.
Alternatively you can call 0800 031 9104 and enter the 4-digit code for the Forth Valley Primary Care Multidisciplinary Team which is 0001.
Together they devised a system which allowed GPs to prescribe in advance for their care home residents who they felt were potentially at risk of severe symptoms due to Covid-19.
If a resident became severely unwell, medicines to alleviate the symptoms could be obtained and administered quickly, day or night.
The multidisciplinary team involving a wide range of staff groups and departments, plus the local hospice and care home leads worked together to implement the process within 72 hours as well as deliver a comprehensive training programme for GPs and care home staff to support the management of residents affected by Covid-19 over the following weeks and months.
Clare Colligan, Lead Pharmacist for Primary Care, said:
“This was a true team effort where an enormous amount of people across multiple disciplines, including colleagues in acute pharmacy, pulled together to set this up this initiative in a matter of days and kept it running for an extended period of time.
“When I think back on this, I am amazed at how we got this up and running so quickly, got all the stakeholders on board, trained the staff in their different roles and got involved in an education programme for care home staff and GPs with Hospice and CHART team support.
“Even though things are tough just now, we need to remember that spirit of everyone pulling together and supporting each other and know we can conquer anything!”
Finalists for the other Scottish Health Award categories will be announced in early October 2021 and the award ceremony will take place in the Corn Exchange in Edinburgh on Thursday 4th November 2021.
You can find out more about the awards on the Scottish Health Awards website.
