UPDATE - SUMMER 2021 LOTHIAN CARE HOME INNOVATION PARTNERSHIP CHIP - NHS LOTHIAN

Lothian Care Home Innovation Partnership [CHiP]
                         UPDATE – Summer 2021

The Care Home Innovation Partnership
(CHIP) has now been in existence for nearly
three years. This last year has seen
considerable changes and it has been an
opportunity to take stock. In this update we
set the changes out and look to the future of
CHIP.

CHANGES IN ‘PARTNER’ CARE
HOMES
As a result of the last 14 months, there have been huge pressure on care homes.
Unfortunately, Braeside along with Sight Scotland’s other care home, Jenny’s Well
(Paisley), were both closed during the pandemic. Thankfully we still have contact
with a lot of Braeside staff as some of them have moved to management positions
in other care homes giving us a natural reach into new homes; others have joined
the City of Edinburgh Care Home Support Team and are involved with our OSCaRS
project.
We particularly want to thank those CHiP partner care homes that have fully
embraced innovation within the CHiP partnership despite the pressures of the
pandemic – Cluny Lodge, Erskine Edinburgh, St Raphaels and Newbyres Village –
and look forward to an on-going partnership as CHiP continues to evolve (see pg.5).

CARE HOME CONFERENCE

In May, Edinburgh Napier University hosted the 3rd Care Homes Conference since
CHiP first formed: “People & Practice: celebrating care home skills”. This has been
a highlight of the last few months and Lucy Johnston, Maggie Dowe and the
organising committee were instrumental in making this ‘online’ conference a real
success. Thank you to all our CHIP colleagues who contributed and attended. A real
highlight was Mike Nicholson’s story ‘Here Is The News’. We are working to make
our recording of this good news story widely available.

For more information on our work, please contact: L.johnston@napier.ac.uk             1

The “ToRCH” (Teaching & Research-based Care Home) CENTRE
The ToRCH Centre vision continues to move forward – many say it takes ten years
for a vision to be fulfilled! The Centre is currently being incorporated within the
plans for the “community zone” on the Queen Margaret University (QMU) campus.
Being situated here, ToRCH will not only benefit from being on the university
campus with access to a range of placements for nursing and AHP students but also
close to the thriving Musselburgh community.
It is so important that the professional and social perception of care homes is
changed and we hope that this will be achieved across SE Scotland through the
Centre. A recent student architecture/landscape artchitecture final year project at
the University of Edinburgh has strengthened the relationship between the two
universities. Jo Hockley will continue to work with Professor Brendan McCormack,
the Dean of Health/Social Care, the Director and his Deputy of the
Campus/Commersialisation and the Principal at QMU.

NHS Lothian Care Home website

As part of the pandemic response all Health Boards were required to create support
mechanisms for all older people care homes in their health and social care
partnerships. In NHS Lothian there has been substantial investment in services that
can build on the existing infrastructure and specialist services that have always been
available for care homes. This new investment includes additional specialists for
infection prevention and control, tissue viability, education and training and quality
improvement. The NHS Lothian Care Home website
(https://services.nhslothian.scot/CareHomes/Pages/default.aspx) went live in
October 2020 and contains information and resources to support care home staff
meet residents’ health needs and also provide development opportunities for care
home staff. The features include:

   • Latest News – up to date information on communications from Scottish
     Government and other health agencies and development opportunities
   • Supporting Resident’s Needs – details of NHS Lothian specialist services
     (nursing and allied health) available to care home residents, including referral
     pathways
   • Education & Training – courses, learning resources and training sessions

For more information on our work, please contact: L.johnston@napier.ac.uk             2

• Staff Health & Wellbeing – wellbeing resources and psychological support
     services.

RESEARCH & INNOVATION:

Online Supportive Conversations and Reflective Session
(OSCaRS) Update
Funding was secured from Edinburgh Lothian Health Foundation to establish a
community of practitioners who can continue delivering OSCaRS in more care
homes across Lothian. The project is currently being led by Jo and Julie who are
training and mentoring specialist palliative care, care home clinical educators and
care home support teams to eventually take over the facilitation once the project
finishes early in 2022. To date 21 care homes are involved and a further seven are
interested from across the City of Edinburgh, Midlothian and West Lothian.
The ‘online’ sessions, which focus on reflecting about deaths in the care home, are
held ‘monthly’ in participating care homes and last for 45 minutes. Brief notes are
taken from each OSCaRS and returned to the care home manager; they can be used
as evidence of practice-based learning in relation to palliative care. The project is
being evaluated by Lucy.

PhD students
Deidre Wallace tells us about her PhD into: ‘Exploring care home residents’ dining
experience and mealtime structure during infectious disease outbreaks”.
The dining experience is a pivotal point in the lived experiences of care home
residents. A critical factor which can influence this experience is an infectious
disease outbreak, an example is the Covid-19 outbreak. My research explores how
infectious disease outbreaks influence care home mealtime structure and residents’
dining experiences. The study is a qualitative case study using three care homes
across Lothian. Phase 1 involves online interviews with care staff and Phase 2 plans
include online interviews with care home residents.
The findings will hopefully improve public awareness and understanding of
residents’ dining needs. As well as generate research interest on infectious disease
outbreaks and their impact on care home residents’ quality of life experiences.

For more information on our work, please contact: L.johnston@napier.ac.uk              3

Care Home Data Research Update
Back in May 2020 CHIP undertook our scoping exercise to set out what would be
needed to construct a strong care home data platform for research and innovation.
This was pre-pandemic and COVID-19 served to reinforce to us all the importance of
accurate data about people who live and work in care homes. Building on our
scoping work, we now have 3 care home data projects aligned to CHIP Lothian:

The GEARED Up project: Care Home Data: Governance, Ethics, Access and
Readiness through an Exemplar Demonstration

• In Scotland there is currently no consensus or defined process for how to get
  ethical approval for care home research, service evaluations in these settings and
  for commercial companies who are involved in Innovation Challenges/Test Bed
  work. The GEARED Up project (funded by DataLab and HISES) has been designed
  to demonstrate how the current ethics and governance framework for care
  home data can be navigated

Digital foundations of care homes: A landscape assessment: South East Scotland

Starting in July 2021 this work will gather required information to present a detailed
assessment of the current digital foundations of care homes in South East Scotland.
Focussing upon data readiness and digital maturity the work will collect and assess
aspects of (1) digital connectivity; (2) digital data collection and care planning and
(3) data governance for sharing and processing. The assessment will include care
homes in Edinburgh (around 109); Scottish Borders (around 26) and Fife (around
75). This regional work has been funded by Data Driven Innovation programme
and will be led by Lucy Johnston.

Care Home Data Platform SBRI Innovation Foundation Challenge: Technical
Feasibility

This challenge was informed by scoping work undertaken in 2019 to inform The
Development of a Care Home Data Platform in Scotland.1 This scoping work was
jointly funded by Health Innovation South East Scotland (HISES) and the Chief
Scientist’s office prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, by academics from Edinburgh
Napier University and University of Edinburgh, to understand from Care Home

1
    https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.08.17.20176503v2
For more information on our work, please contact: L.johnston@napier.ac.uk            4

managers and staff what opportunities existed for innovative solutions to improve
the lives of both the residents and the staff. Further information and video at
https://hises.edinburghbioquarter.com/care-home-innovation-challenge/ Five
companies are currently working on Phase 1.

CHANGE IN LEADERSHIP OF CHiP

A decision has been taken to have CHiP located within the wider local ENRICH
Scotland community. We are excited to be part of this wider infrastructure to
support care home research across Scotland, and hope that we will inspire further
CHiPs across Scotland. To find out more about ENRICH (and to sign up to be a
‘Research Ready’ Care Home) see
https://www.nhsresearchscotland.org.uk/research-in-scotland/facilities/enrich.

If you’re interested in finding more about CHiP or being part of a CHiP in your area,
please contact us tay.enrichscotland@nhs.scot; Jo.Hockley@ed.ac.uk;
L.Johnston@napier.ac.uk; Susan.Shenkin@ed.ac.uk; Julie.Watson@ed.ac.uk

Arrivederci, Alla prossima Jo Hockley
Over the last three years, CHiP has managed to not only ‘gel’ the leadership from
across the two universities but undertake many innovations and research driven by
the care home managers’ priorities. Jo’s funding from Macmillan which has allowed
her to do so much of the CHiP work finishes at the end of July. At our last meeting
we all agreed that CHiP should move forward and how important it is for us to keep
moving, keep working together, and not become a static ivory tower!

Thank you Jo for your drive, enthusiasm and commitment.

                                               Jo Hockley, The Usher Institute, University of
                                               Edinburgh
                                               Lucy Johnston, Health & Social Care, Edinburgh
                                               Napier University
                                               Susan Shenkin, The Usher Institute, University
                                               of Edinburgh; NHS Lothian
                                               Julie Watson, School of Health and Social
                                               Science, University of Edinburgh

For more information on our work, please contact: L.johnston@napier.ac.uk                   5