New community services to launch as £207m contract begins

East Coast Community Healthcare (ECCH) will provide extra community services and specialist palliative care to adults across Great Yarmouth and Waveney from Monday (1 April) when a new £207m contract begins.

The five year contract, awarded by NHS Great Yarmouth and Waveney Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), will see a range of new community health services phased in to improve care for local people and prevent them from having to travel further afield or to an acute hospital for treatment. They include:

• a new specialist palliative care service, which will be delivered in partnership with St Elizabeth Hospice. The consultant-led service will give patients access to consistent palliative and end of life care as well as a helpline, OneCall, which will be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to offer advice and support for patients, families, carers and health professionals. Up to six new specialist palliative care beds will also be provided at Beccles Hospital, with specialist palliative daycare being introduced across Great Yarmouth and Waveney over the term of the contract.

• An improved diabetes service which provides a one-stop shop for assessment and checks to improve care for patients with diabetes.

• A new IV service at Beccles Hospital which will allow people to receive intravenous treatments, such as antibiotics, in the community rather than at an acute hospital

• Enabling several specialist services to be more community focused by basing them in the community, such as dietetics, stoma nurses and pulmonary and cardiac rehabilitation teams, including some heart failure nurses. This means that patients will be able to get more support to manage their own health and wellbeing within the community.

• Closer working between community teams, GP surgeries and other health and care providers within the Primary Care Networks so that patients and their families can receive joined-up, seamless services.

• Increased patient input into service provision through public engagement activities and ongoing dialogue with Patient Participation Groups.