Publish date: 19 September 2024
More than a hundred staff working in the community descended on Brentford Football Club last week to celebrate five years of Ealing Community Partners.
The event was held at the Gtech Community Stadium on Thursday 12 September and welcomed staff from across the Trust’s Integrated Community Health Services at West London.
One of the main aims was to reflect on the past five years and celebrate the achievements of staff working across the community.
Ealing Community Partners (ECP) was launched in 2019 and is a partnership organisation including Ealing Council, West London NHS Trust, Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust (CNWL) and voluntary organisations.
Since this time, community services have grown to become around one third of the Trust’s workforce, with the recent addition of staff from Hounslow Community Healthcare.
During the event, different teams from ECP shared their biggest achievements, including Musculoskeletal Health (MSK), Ealing Children’s Services, the Healthy Lifestyles Service, and staff from Clayponds Hospitals..
Presentations from Hounslow Community Healthcare touched upon the work to improve care and treatment of pressure ulcers, the learning disabilities quality checkers programme, work to improve discharge pathways and enhanced dementia care services to reduce the number of emergency hospital admissions for people living with dementia.
The afternoon included a presentation from Dr Christopher Hilton, Chief Operating Officer for Local and Specialist Services at West London NHS Trust and Graeme Caul, Chief Operating Officer for CNWL.
Dr Hilton said: “It gave me enormous pleasure to join my counterpart from CNWL at the conference in Brentford last week.
“West London NHS Trust has grown in confidence, scale and reputation as a provider of integrated community health services over the past decade, and the expertise and energy of clinicians in the room and the good practice shared from the first five years of Ealing Community Partners, as well as from Hammersmith and Fulham, and Hounslow Community Healthcare, was fantastic to hear.
“The conference took place on the day that Lord Darzi published his independent investigation, and whilst this contains some sobering information about all aspects of the NHS, I was heartened to be able to draw our teams’ attention to his observations about a workforce which is ‘profoundly passionate and motivated to raise the quality of care for patients,’ and about the essential role for community based services in locking in ‘the shift of care closer to home’ and in ‘simplify[ing] and innovate[ing] care delivery for a neighbourhood NHS.’
“From the presentations I observed and connections being made, I was confident we’re in a good position to make some of this a reality.”
Graeme Caul, Chief Operating Officer at Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust, said: “Together we’re stronger and Ealing Community Partners is a testament to this.
“When partners in community health join up it provides better health services for patients and the residents of Ealing. We’ve achieved so much in five years and I look forward to seeing what more we can achieve as we look to the future.”
Staff also heard from the Trust’s Chief Executive, Maria O’Brien. In her previous role as Chief Nurse and Deputy Chief Executive of CNWL, Maria was the lead director at CNWL working to develop ECP. During her presentation, Maria highlighted how integrated care services demonstrate how organisations can come together to work collaboratively.
The importance of staff wellbeing was a key message on the day. Staff were treated to a special performance from Impact Theatre, a local organisation promoting a positive image of disability through participation in performing arts. There was also a fun musical activity courtesy of Naveen Arles.