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Brighton & Sussex Medical School

Left-shifting care with marginalised groups

BSMS > Research > Primary care and public health > Marginalised and Coastal Community Health > Left-shifting care with marginalised groups

Left-shifting care with marginalised groups

Waiting lists for youth mental health and people living with frailty are exploding. Huge shortages of staff add to this burning platform. The public furthermore has little insight into their specific needs. They have unrealistic expectations about what care can offer them. The only way forward is to left-shift care and support. Good assessments are crucial. We need to involve self-care and the voluntary and community sector much more, but that requires evidence-based tools, models of care and training.

BACKGROUND IMAGE FOR PANEL

About the project

To left-shift integrated care, we:

a) work closely with the Starting Well theme of the Applied Research Collaboration Kent Surrey and Sussex (ARC KSS), Primary and Community Health Services theme (PCHS), in the CATALYST project to co-design new ways forward.

b) We also link up with the London and Zimbabwe based Friendship Bench team to set up a similar facility in our region.

c) To urgently further strengthen both care and research regionally, interRAI.org, a not-for-profit organisation of researchers and clinicians active in over 35 countries, wants to help us. They have developed the best assessment instruments for people with complex needs in the world. They provide the training infrastructure for our community health workers.

The tools are in use by millions already elsewhere but have had little impact so far in the UK. Harm is interRAI fellow. We think that three interRAI self-report tools show particular promise for the UK. We are currently starting to pilot their Check-Up (CU) for frailty, the Self-reported Carer Needs (SCaN), and the new Self-reported Assessment of Mental Health (SAMH). Manuals for the CU and SCaN have been published. The tools generate so-called trigger points for further attention. We will focus on how models such as co-designed CATALYST interventions, the Friendship Bench and interRAI tools could improve much-needed shared decision making for marginalised groups in our region.

Visit the project webpage here >

BACKGROUND IMAGE FOR PANEL

Project outputs

  • UK Implementation guidance paper (Rob, Harm, interRAI)
  • Engagement with an existing network
  • Dummy clinical and social care pathways
  • Pilots showing feasibility for hard-to-reach groups in England
  • interRAI will produce several academic papers on the various tools, offering opportunities for local authors to take the lead