During the Covid-19 pandemic Louise has hosted a daily 11am video conference with a local care home of 70 residents, providing immense support to the carers and allowing significant continuity of care.
With help from colleagues at Garforth Medical Practice, they have turned the conference into a ‘ward round.’ Louise sees the residents on video for assessment, a general chat and to give them a friendly and familiar face. This digital solution has meant she has been able to deal with acute issues, chronic issues, medication issues and provide support for people at the end of life.
Alongside work with individual residents, Louise and her practice colleagues have provided the care home with a thermometer, blood pressure monitors and oxygen sats probe (which measures how much oxygen the haemoglobin in your blood is carrying) and they have been able to perform observations on the residents which aided in devising a management plan for the care.
The practice hopes that this has put in place a new normal process whereby they can continue to provide the invaluable support the care home and its residents require. The ultimate aim is to provide a daily video conference that the home will also use to improve care and reduce the number of home visits required by the surgery, as well as avoid unnecessary hospital admissions.