Q3 2022/23 Newsletter

A Message From Julie

The Right Shoes

So, as we head into the new year it’s a good time to reflect on the year that has gone. One where things have, more or less, got back on track. To reflect on what we have achieved for the team and for ourselves. For all of our services it’s been a really great year, tough but great and that’s down to all of the hard work of all of you. So thank you so very much for making this year a good year.

also a time to look forward to the allenges and opportunities that lie ead. It's maybe also a time when we can mind ourselves that we are never really ne. Not everyone has family but we all ve colleagues and friends, we work with

clients, partners, other services and to be mindful of the real impact we have on the lives of others. It’s a time to reflect and think about kindness, on how we can make the impact that we have a positive one. I do smile at drivers on the road when I drive to work and very often they smile back – and that might just change the course of their day. A small interaction can have a big impact. So let’s remember to be kind to one another, to remember to say thank you, remember to praise and remember that we are part of something bigger, and that if each of us has a small impact, then together we can have a huge impact.

A Message From Julie

It’s also a time to remember that the smile we see on people’s faces, is quite often only skin deep and that we very rarely know what is going on behind the scenes. So if a colleague or client / patient doesn’t seem quite themselves, ask and check and then check again. We all have challenges outside of work and we may well assume other people don’t have the concerns that you do. We all play

different roles at different times of the day / week etc., whether that’s parent, partner, worker, manager, volunteer, participant etc. So we all wear different masks at different times. I’ve logged my day in shoes, wearing the right shoes is much like the masks we wear or the different sides of our personality we present. Making sure we have on the right pair of shoes for the right job is essential. So remember to consider what else might be going on in people’s lives. We do have to present the right ‘face’ for the right time, but we can step outside of the ‘front’ and share with colleagues or managers and talk about what is really going on and get the support we need.

If we look after ourselves, then we can look after our patients and clients – so take care and let's face the new year with vim and vigour and together! ( My day in shoes – can you guess what my usual day routine is?)

Happy New Year!

Macmillan Joining the Dots

Macmillan Joining the Dots Service has been extremely busy supporting over 500 people since April 2022.

Our clients have received help with finances, benefit checks and support with housing.

The team have also supported clients with emotional wellbeing by referring or signposting to organisations for further support.

Such as Macmillan, Bupa counselling and telephone buddies, sourcing psychological support from GP and community mental health organisations.

Macmillan Joining the Dots

A large part of our role is linking in with clinical services to provide good joined up care for our clients. We have worked closely with care coordinators, Macmillan Clinical Nurse Specialists and palliative care teams.

There have been some team changes too! We’ve said goodbye to one of our wonderful facilitators, Christine Kay, and wished her well in her retirement, and we’ve welcomed the lovely Karen Pattison into the team. We’ve also helped community groups to raise over £500 for Macmillan at their Macmillan Coffee Mornings across the county.

Recent events the team have attended are:

Macmillan coffee mornings. Health and Social care presentation at New College Durham. Durham County carers event. Advice in County Durham. Supporting through cost of living crisis. Christmas tree festival.

Going Greener

The Wellbeing Green Theme group is at the heart of driving our contribution to trust plans to reduce our impact on the environment.

We have looked for the best advice out there and come up with a simple guide to saving energy Start with this checklist from

The Greener Initiative

Greener on the Road

Many people don't realise that as of January 2022, changes were made to the Highway Code aimed at improving safety for people walking, cycling and riding horses.

Alternative transport is a key green initiative and helping people feel safe on the roads can only encourage more users, so here is a summary of those changes.

Hierarchy of Road Users

There are two fundamental changes to the Highway Code, known as H2 and H3. H2 emphasises how drivers should give way to pedestrians, motorcyclists, horse drawn vehicles, horse riders and cyclists crossing or waiting to cross a road into which or from which they are turning. Similarly, horse riders should give way to cyclists, cyclists should give way to pedestrians and so on.

Greener on the Road

H3 states that you should not cut across cyclists, horse riders or horse drawn vehicles going ahead when you are turning into or out of a junction or changing direction or lane, just as you would not turn across the path of another motor vehicle. This applies whether they are using a cycle lane, a cycle track, or riding ahead on the road and you should give way to them.

Do not turn at a junction if to do so would cause the cyclist, horse rider or horse drawn vehicle going straight ahead to stop or swerve.

You should stop and wait for a safe gap in the flow of cyclists if necessary.

This includes when cyclists are:

approaching, passing or moving off from a junction moving past or waiting alongside stationary or slow-moving traffic travelling around a roundabout

Yes, winter is upon us and brings us all environmental challenges. We don't need to tell you about the increase in heating costs as you will be all too well aware of how this is impacting you. The following tips are, again, from the government website.

Going Greener

News in the North Hub

On 07/12/22 we were made aware of a woman fleeing domestic abuse with her 14 year old daughter in Durham Clothing Bank. We're supporting them as they left their home with nothing but the clothes they were both wearing. Durham Clothing Bank reached out to us to see if there was anything we could do to support this family in dire need.

We made contact with the family and quickly found out that they had recently secured a new home through Believe Housing. The issue was that they needed to be moved into the house by 23/12/22 but the house was literally an empty shell and they had very little money, or essentials in order to make this happen. They had taken advantage of DCC Welfare Assistance Scheme and secured a fridge, a cooker and a washing machine. The main issue now was getting flooring supplied so they were able to move in.

We reached out to our networks and began moving mountains to ensure this family did not miss this opportunity to begin rebuilding their lives. We contacted AAPs and asked them to reach out within their networks to support with things like a van to move bulkier items, community support opportunities and to see if there were people within the community who were in a position to donate essentials to this family.

News in the North Hub

We reached out to the Councillors to see if there were additional funding pathways open that could be utilisied to support this family. Emails instantly began flying all around DCC, including from our commissioners to ensure this family was being supported in the right way.

Our facilitators ensured the client was linked in with all relevant organisations in a position to support them such as Harbour, CAB, Housing Solutions, Believe Housing and looked into grants that were available. This is where we began hitting our first hurdle. All potential funding streams would take up to eight weeks to be approved. We linked in with Damian Pearson at Believe Housing to ensure that all available support was in place and he made us aware of a project with Harbour that they had funded to support victims fleeing domestic abuse to get essential items. We then worked alongside Harbour to ensure they could approve the funding for flooring and ensured we could release the funding in time to have the flooring ordered before Christmas.

On Tuesday 13/12/22 we finally found out that the flooring funding had been approved, leaving just enough time to have it ordered before the flooring company closed for Christmas and time to have it laid so the family could move in before Christmas.

We had various people from within and external to our service clubbing together to donate items such as a TV, beds, kitchen essentials, a sofa, towels, bedding and all sorts of accessories and furniture and managed to set them up with many of the essentials they would need in order to start building their new home. This was only possible due to the strong network connections our service has forged within public, voluntary and community sector organisations. It was an absolute pleasure working alongside many other organisations in order to make this happen, it just goes to show the potential power a network can have and how important it is to forge those community connections within Co. Durham.

Healthworks

Winter Woollies

Healthworks hosted a winter woollies event where staff, community and external partners donated coats, hats, gloves and scarves.

We opened the building, offering free tea, coffee and soup and the opportunity for members of the public to collect clothing to ensure that they were warm over the winter period. We ran this over two weeks, in which time we had over 35 members of the public attend and collect winter clothing for themselves and their families. In total we have managed to provide winter clothing for over 120 people.

We had a range of visitors, from homeless to refugees who had arrived in this country with just the clothes they were wearing. One gentleman said that we had saved his life as he is living on the streets and had no warm waterproof coat.

Stop Smoking Services

We are the Darlington Stop Smoking Service. Our service is small and unique. We are a team of three based at Eastbourne Sports Complex in Darlington. There is myself - Sarah Anderson the Senior Stop Smoking Advisor - I have worked for the service for five years and absolutely love my job. Elaine Scott is the newest member of our team. Elaine joined in August after leaving her previous role with the pathology department within the Trust. Elaine has completed all her advisor training and is now running her own clinics. And finally we have Kymm Hobson who is our service administrator. Kymm has worked for the Trust for many years and has bought a whole wealth of knowledge with her to support our team.

We are a specialist stop smoking service who support people within Darlington to quit smoking. All referrals into the service need to come from a health care professional and everyone who accesses us must meet specific criteria. We work closely with GP practices, dental surgeries, secondary care teams, local Sure Start centres and nurseries, the Fire Service and many other professional groups. During the last quarter, we had a quit rate of 86%, which we were all very proud of.

New for 2023 - We are planning to launch our new e-voucher system which will give our clients more flexibility on where they can collect their nicotine replacement products. We are looking to hold some face to face community events, something that we haven’t been able to do for a couple of years. We are also looking to restart face to face appointments in the new Darlington Health Hub so we can support quitters in as many ways as possible.

From everyone at the Darlington Stop Smoking Service, we wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Treating Tobacco Dependency Service

The Treating Tobacco Dependency Service (TTDS) is now fully staffed and equipped with our new uniforms! This has proven to be a significant factor in our visibility, recognition and integration within the Trust.

We are providing support for patients in secondary care on wards in Darlington Memorial Hospital and University Hospital North Durham. The provision offers a range of Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT) and behavioural support to help patients in quitting or abstaining from smoking whilst admitted. We also work with Maternity Services and Maternity Care Assistants in the North and South of the region to support pregnant people who smoke to quit. We are providing advice and support to #TeamCDDFT staff to access NRT or Vapes when making a quit attempt through support from ABL, our Community Stop Smoking partners.

Treating Tobacco Dependency Service

Treating Tobacco Dependency Service

The TTDS will be supporting patients and colleagues to understand the aims of the service and its key messages such as:

• Treating tobacco dependency is the single most cost effective and lifesaving intervention the NHS can provide

• Tobacco dependency treatments have a bigger clinical impact than most medical interventions

• Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT) and behavioural support can help smokers quit

• Most smokers do want to stop smoking but can find it difficult due to their addiction, and it can sometimes take a number of attempts before they quit for good

In doing this, the Trust is supporting the aims of the NHS Long Term Plan that by 2023/24 all people admitted to hospital who smoke, will be offered NHS funded tobacco treatment. This will be provided as an ‘opt-out’ model with all healthcare professionals taking responsibility for their part in the service. If you have any questions for the team please contact cddft.ttdservice@nhs.net

Happy Story

Regarding the Wellbeing Service and particularly at this moment the "cooking with Wendy"' course, as I like to call it , that I attended and completed this week I would like to thank all staff involved for enabling me to have the opportunity of participating in this excellent course. From the initial contact with staff at the office, yourself, and Wendy who delivered the course, the process has been seamless. All the staff have been friendly, supportive, and approachable too, which has made my whole experience a joy.

I have thoroughly enjoyed attending the course, which has been extremely beneficial to me due to a change in my own personal circumstances, changes within my life, and to my health and wellbeing too. From my own experiences of participating in this cookery course, I would class it as an alternative thought-provoking process to cooking and maintaining a healthy eating lifestyle. The course itself was well attended which enabled me to learn from others about their own cooking experiences, poor eating habits and changes that they may make going forward with food, a positive outcome for all.

Happy Story

I found the course to be interactive, informal, fun, a laugh, and a social event too. As for Wendy, she had an informal approach that was fun and relaxed which made the course feel relaxed for all those involved. Wendy is knowledgeable about food, and she shared her experiences and in-depth knowledge of her cooking, which was excellent. I appreciate that and I am grateful to her too for sharing her 'food mind,' with us. I enjoyed the process of discussing the different types of cooking equipment, the cost of running these, preparing meals with others, cooking the meals and tasting them, and such a variety of unexpected tasty meals from a microwave, yummy! As I am attending the Eatwise course too, I was able to combine my learning from that course with the cooking course with 'Wendy,' which brought my own learning and understanding of nutrition and cooking to the forefront of my mind, and to have this now, is a new experience for me. I intend to use this to better my own understanding of food and nutrition.

During both courses, attendees discussed air fryers, and I gained the feeling that these may be the future of cooking, just like an oven was many years ago. If this is the case, and people are cooking with this piece of equipment, then surely Wendy can have one? : ) This will enable her to incorporate her own cooking and experiences of using one in future courses, just like she has recently done in the course on how to cook with a microwave.

Wellbeing for the Time Being

The Rapid Response “arm” of the Wellbeing for the Time Being (WB4TB) pilot programme offers prehabilitation interventions to patients with a new colorectal, lung, head or neck cancer diagnosis. To date, 146 patients have been supported to optimise their health and wellbeing in preparation for the physical and emotional challenges of treatment and surgery. Some examples of the benefits of engaging in prehabilitation are improved recovery times, reduced length of stay in the hospital, better wound healing and a reduction in treatment side effects.

Since the pilot launched in November 2021, the team have been working hard to improve patient experience and engagement and have introduced several service developments such as:

• Delivering modified gym circuit sessions at Sacriston Health Centre and The Louisa Centre Stanley

• Introducing Walk and Talk sessions at Chester-Le-Street Park and Hardwick Park, Sedgefield

• Offering face to face initial assessment appointment slots in three community locations

• Increasing the current offer of prehab to include support for patients whilst they are undergoing their treatment

• Extending the offer to include patients with a new gynaecological diagnosis

Wellbeing for the Time Being

Plans for Early 2023

• Further development of the pathway to include time-limited rehabilitation, support postsurgery/treatment and an exit strategy to support onward signposting to community services or groups

• Work with the wider WB4TB team to try to secure more locations for face to face assessments and delivery

• Patient engagement event

Social Prescribing Link Workers

SPLWs have been working hard in the run up to the winter/Christmas period. As usual at this time of year demand is high at the PCN GP surgeries with increased referral rates for patients requiring support. SPLWs are helping patients with a wide and ranging holistic form of social and emotional and practical support focused on “WHAT MATTERS TO YOU”. Offering financial and benefits advice, housing support, etc. SPLWs are working with very complex patients who require that extra level of support. They are also supporting with contacting clients from the PCN cohort patient lists, focusing on mental health, weight management and obesity. It’s a very busy period for the team but as usual they are a fantastic team delivering to a high standard. They can link the patients to the right support by signposting, facilitation and navigation.

So, what is social prescribing?

Social prescribing provides a 1:1 personalised support service with a SPLW. You can get further information about accessing the SPLW service by speaking to the reception staff at your local GP practice.

Since April 2022, the SPLW team have supported a total of 2,585 clients around a wide range of issues including debt advice, energy bills, housing, mental wellbeing and social isolation. Over the past few months, we have seen a shift in the areas of client need and there is currently a large focus on energy bills and finance. Our main referrers are GPs, GP receptionists, pharmacists, nurses, physio's, care coordinators/ facilitators etc. The Fire Service and Police can also refer in.

Social Prescribing Link Workers

We refer to a variety of organisations, here are just some of them:

Local community centres and church halls Church groups

Walking groups

Local gyms

Craft and art groups Healthier & Wealthier WBFL Home Group Talking changes Mental Health GP aligned services Age UK

Karbon Homes - Silver talk Befriending Services

Alzheimer's Society Durham County Carers

The Just Women Centre in Stanley

Adult Social Services. Local Hospitals. Joining the Dots Golf For Society

Professional Footballers Association

Social Prescribing Link Workers

The impact of your referrals in County Durham (Healthier & Wealthier):

From January to November 2022, you referred 2,125 advice cases to the service… resulting in a massive 4,819 advice slots filled in the first 11 months of the year!

In that period, SPLWs have made between 40% and 64% of the referrals each month… meaning these crucial links within and beyond the practice are having a preventative impact for patients

In the same period, clinicians and other practice staff have made between 16% and 32% of the referrals each month… meaning you’re still having crucial conversations in all parts of the practice, and catching non-medical needs or some of the underlying social causes of health and mental health problems

Also, Jan-Nov 2022, 84% of patients were advised on benefits and tax credits (up 14% compared to the same period last year), 26% on Universal Credit (down 5%), 15% on debt (up 6%), and 14% on housing (no change)

The proportions of patients referred who are living as a couple, with no reported disability or long-term health condition, with mental health issues, or in privately owned or rented housing have all increased

The age profile of patients referred Jan – Nov 2022 changed a little: patients aged 50-65 remained the most referred for advice, but those aged 30-49 were referred more often than usual, particularly when energy prices were in the news

The usual average annual income gain for patients (where a gain is possible) is around £4,500

Spot the Difference

Can you spot the 10 differences between these images?

Who's New? Who's Flew?

Sam Myers

Wellbeing for Life Practitioner

Previous job?

Ambulance Dispatch Trainer with North East Ambulance Service and Group Exercise Instructor

Interesting fact?

I used to be a Beauty Therapist on cruise ships and my favourite places I visited were Alaska and Hawaii.

What will you bring to the role?

I teach a range of fitness classes including Rockbox and Zumba, Zumba Gold and have recently finished my 200 hour yoga.

Owain Heather Digital Engagement Officer

Previous job? Support Worker.

Interesting fact?

I once accidentally locked two tourists in a medieval-style dungeon museum in London. The fire brigade released them eventually.

What will you bring to the role?

A passion to improve the service and a fair bit of movie nerdiness.