Philippa Darnton, programme lead at Wessex AHSN, describes the first symposium to report findings from the independent evaluation of Happy, Healthy, at Home (North East Hampshire and Farnham Vanguard):As
Happy, Healthy, at Home implements new ways of working across North East Hampshire and Farnham, an evaluation programme has been established to understand the impact of these changes and to capture the learning to share with others.
The evaluation team, led by Wessex Academic Health Science Network and the
Centre for Implementation Science (Southampton University), is working in partnership with Central, South and West Commissioning Support Unit (CSU), Vanguard Programme team, local GPs and service leads.
Detailed and rich data is now emerging about how the new models of care are experienced by users of the services and by staff.
This first symposium, held in Farnborough on 10 January 2017, brought together specialists and people with an interest in evaluation to share and reflect on the early findings. Over 70 delegates attended from the local health and care system, other Vanguard areas and the National New Care Models Team (NHS England).
The symposium was opened by Maggie MacIsaac, Chief Officer, North East Hampshire and Farnham CCG and received presentations from the Wessex AHSN Evaluation Team and staff who are leading the implementation of New Models of Care.
The delegates heard about two programmes supporting the prevention of ill health through social prescribing and supporting self management:
the Recovery College and
Farnham Making Connections. The presentations described the benefits for students, service users and staff and suggested the ‘active ingredients’ that make these models of care successful. Four workshop sessions explored a range of evaluation methods including
analysing use of health services,
how to evaluate teams,
R-Outcomes (validated measures of patient and staff experience) and evaluations of other social prescribing models including
Care Navigators.Delegates also took part in a live experiment using R outcomes to assess their perceptions of their own health and experience of services which produced some surprising results!
Robust and pragmatic evaluation is important to enhance our understanding of what makes a difference to those who use new Models of Care and to those who deliver them. This symposium, and future events, will also probe why services work (or don’t work) and which new care models could benefit others through spreading the lessons learned.
Wessex Academic Health Science Network is planning a second evaluation symposium for Happy, Healthy, at Home in April 2017 which will present and discuss further results that have emerged from the evaluation programme.
Further details of this event
can be found here.
