My Life, My Choice - Partnerships for Older People Project (POPP)

On 7 December 2006, the Department of Health announced that Devon’s £3.8 million POPP bid, spearheaded by Devon County Council, Adult & Community Services (A&CS) and NHS Devon had been successful.

Others in the partnership now include

Adult and Community Services (A&CS)

• NHS Devon
• Devon Partnership Trust (DPT)
• North Devon Healthcare Trust (NDHT)
• South Devon Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust (SDHT)
• The Royal Devon and Exeter Healthcare Trust (R, D & E)
• South Western Ambulance Services Trust (SWAST)
• Voluntary Sector

Devon is one of the Government’s pilot areas testing new ways to improve the lives of older people, giving them greater personal control over their physical and emotional health, and enabling them to remain independent wherever possible.

In the bid we outlined four main ways (workstreams) in which this will be achieved

The formation of multi disciplinary teams to help people with complex care needs

People who need a home visit or a face to face assessment will be looked after by new multi-agency teams made up of staff from DCC Adult & Community Services (A&CS), NHS Devon and Devon Partnership Trust (DPT) based in market and coastal towns near to where people live.  

These health and social care staff will work together with the support of specialists who can be called on when needed.

New technological solutions and systems will allow information to be shared by staff from different agencies, ending the need to provide basic information more than once and the risks involved by “communication breakdowns” between agencies. When clients needs have been identified and a care plan agreed the new brokerage service will arrange the care.

The piloting and then rolling out across Devon of mentoring schemes

Avoiding loneliness or social isolation can be a major factor in preventing low level depression and ill health. Voluntary groups already working in the community will offer an extra helping hand to encourage people to try out new activities or join existing groups. Community mentoring schemes are already being evaluated by our LinkAge Plus (LAP) pilot and their findings will help us to decide which approach produces the best outcomes.

The provision of footcare services

In recent surveys of older people’s concerns, undertaken both nationally and locally, it emerged that a major worry was around maintaining healthy feet. - how to get toenails cut and feet looked after. The impact of uncomfortable or painful feet on an older person’s mobility, confidence and safety from falls was considerable.

Voluntary organisations supported by the programme will be encouraged to offer basic footcare services at an affordable price provided by specially trained volunteers  The volunteers will be supported by a qualified NHS podiatrist who will also train them to look out for and report potentially serious problems

Not forgetting carers - More support will also be given to Devon’s 72,000 carers, nearly a quarter of whom are elderly.

Within the programme budget £200,000 has been ring-fenced exclusively for development work which will provide on-going support for Carers.  Discussions have taken place with Carers via the County Carers Steering Group.  Their feedback identified two clear priorities

• The development of closer working links with GP Practices to identify and ‘pick up’ Carers as this is often the Carers’ first point of call.
• The development of contingency planning emergency response card and emergency response service for Carers

These projects are currently being planned and developed with Carers.