Developing community services
We are developing new community-based services that reflect our Your Care, Your Future ambitions to provide better coordinated care closer to home - preventing people from having to go into hospital unnecessarily and making sure that services work together to provide joined up care.
For people with complex needs who are being looked after by lots of different health and social care professionals it’s important to work together to plan people’s care in a coordinated way. This unified approach is better for patients and better for the health and care system.
To help people be healthy and independent, new service are also focusing on prevention and supporting people to look after themselves.
We also want to make sure that people have the same good experience of receiving care and receive the same level of service, wherever they live in west Hertfordshire.
Our Your Care, Your Future health and council partners, voluntary and community organisations, patients and others have been involved in work to redesign services that reflects all of these aims.
Patients have been involved in the process of commissioning and selecting the new providers.
Community Services
A number of new style services are up and running and benefiting patients.
- Enhanced community gynaecology service (Provided by the Community Gynaecology Partnership)
- Integrated Musculoskeletal Service including pain management, rheumatology and falls prevention (Provided by Connect Health)
- Integrated diabetes service (Provided by West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust working with Hertfordshire Community Trust)
- Nutrition and dietetics (Provided by Hertfordshire Community NHS Trust)
- Community dermatology (Provided by HealthHarmonie)
- Ear Nose and Throat (Provided by Communitas)
- Ophthalmology (Provided by Community Health and Eye Care)
Adult Community Health Services
Central London Community Healthcare NHS Trust (CLCH) is the main provider of adult community health services in West Hertfordshire. The service provides community nursing, therapy and specialist services for adults who are registered with a GP in our area. For more details go to our Adult Community Health Services page.
CLCH is leading work to introduce more integrated community health services in west Hertfordshire. They will work with primary care, mental health, social care and voluntary organisations to create more fully joined-up services, in line with national expectations set out by NHS England. The many thousands of patients who use the service will notice a real transformation in their care as planned changes are delivered.
CLCH took on the delivery of adult community health services from Hertfordshire Community NHS Trust (HCT).
HCT continues to be responsible for children and young people's community health services in west Hertfordshire. It also runs nutrition and dietetics services and is a big part of the integrated diabetes service.
Respiratory services
We have worked with West Hertfordshire Hospital Trust and community provider Central London Community Health Trust to develop an integrated point of access for all respiratory conditions. This will support patients being seen in the right place, at the right time by the most appropriate clinician whether that is in community or in a specialist hospital. Patient choice will apply.