Community 1st News

Working together during the pandemic and beyond

Change is not new to the Health and Social Care System and working under pressure is not new to the Health and Social Care system. What is new to the Health and Social Care system is the requirement to deliver services against a back drop of unprecedented change and, an ongoing global pandemic.

Those working within the health and social care system in any role, at any level during this current time are experiencing an ongoing pressure, not only to continue to meet the demands borne out of the pandemic, but to also design and develop strategic plans that will deliver the targets set out in The Long Term Plan and those detailed in the more recent white paper; Integration and innovation: working together to improve health and social care for all.

This new policy direction presents considerable challenges for all sectors involved in the planning and delivery of health and social care services. For Community 1st, in our role as the approved local LIFT, Property and Partnering Services partner in Cornwall, Sheffield and Oldham, we recognise that the benefits of working together to support our local partners, organisations and communities has never been more pertinent.

The team at Community 1st pride ourselves on the successful partnerships we have developed over the years. As we continue to navigate the changing NHS and Social Care landscape we continue to recognise and commit to working even more closely with our partners.

As part of this commitment, we have been working hard to create the ability for our assets to host services without fear of contamination and without a constant interruption to service delivery.

We have adopted a system called LumiBio which runs in real time, no interruption in service, nothing extra for staff to do and a weekly audit trail to demonstrate the efficacy and to provide peace of mind.

We have been running this system across key parts of our managed estate and in the longest running scenario at the ICC in Oldham we have maintained a zero pathogen environment for over 40 weeks.

This means that services hosted in our buildings where this system is being utilised are provided in a safe protected pathogen free bubble, safer for patients and safer for staff.

Talk to us about your particular care pathway and we will provide a solution.

With operational support delivered by our 24/7 estates and FM teams whose services now include the delivery and installation of our advanced Infection, Prevention and Control system, LumiBio, you can be assured that we will deliver outstanding results and ensure staff and patients are protected against infection risks in key clinical and social care settings.

We will continue to support the strategic planning and development of options for improved and more efficient use of existing health and social care estate, and the creation of new models of care. As an example we are also supporting the development of an enhanced digital care platform that enables people to receive treatment and care in their own homes.

Change is inevitable, and whilst it is often feared, all staff working within the health and social care system have worked through extraordinary change during the most extraordinary times. We will continue to play our part in supporting you, our partners through the next challenge that lies ahead.

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Meet our UK based 24/7 helpdesk team

Our UK Helpdesk Team based in Oldham, provide 24/7 all year-round support for our health care estate, coordinating every job undertaken across the health care estate from the initial call to the resolution of the issue.

Our friendly and professional Helpdesk team know our estate and tenants and provide support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week working in partnership with our Property and Facility Management teams to ensure the smooth running of our managed healthcare estate in Oldham, Sheffield and Cornwall.

Find out more about our partnering services here: https://community1st.co.uk/partnering-services/

#NHSEstatesServices #FacilitiesManagement #WorkingTogether #propertymanagement

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Meet our Facilities Management Team

Our locally based Facilities Management Teams in Oldham, Sheffield and Cornwall provide access to a range of skills to ensure statutory compliance across our managed estate and resource to manage reactive emergency call outs and pre-planned maintenance tasks 24/7, all year round, to ensure the smooth running of these premises for our tenants.

Our Facilities management teams ensure the highest standards of maintenance, compliance, safety and environmental conditions are maintained. This is coordinated through a dedicated UK based helpdesk providing 24/7 support.

Our regional teams supported by our construction teams undertake backlog maintenance and capital works projects for our NHS Partners.

Find out more about our facilities management estate services here: https://community1st.co.uk/partnering-services/

T: 0161 8319722
E: info@community1st.co.uk
W: www.community1st.co.uk

#NHSEstatesServices #FacilitiesManagement #WorkingTogether #propertymanagement

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Capital works to support changes to local health services

One of Sheffield’s distinguished health centres is being remodelled to accommodate a relocated GP surgery.

In March 2021 variation works at Darnall Medical Centre will create a new reception desk and additional admin rooms to allow nearby York Road surgery to relocate into these modern, fit-for-purpose facilities. The works are being completed by Community 1st Sheffield as the building owner on behalf of Head Tenant, Community Health Partnerships.

The construction and property management teams appointed by Community 1st have adapted the way they work to ensure safe Covid-19 working systems during the pandemic. They will be working hard to minimise any disruption to staff and patients.

Community 1st Sheffield has developed seven Primary Care centres across the city for our local NHS partners. In addition, Community 1st Sheffield have also undertaken a considerable number of minor works and property adaptations to reflect the changing demands of Primary Care Services across Sheffield, including the recent completion of variation works to Jordanthorpe Medical Centre, Sheffield.

#WorkingTogether #VariationWorks #EstateManagement

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Meet the Property Team

Our locally based Property Management Teams in Oldham, Sheffield, Cornwall are a dedicated support for our health care estate, working closely with the NHS Tenants representative and practice managers to ensure the smooth running of these facilities.

Our property team ensure the highest standards of maintenance, compliance, safety and environmental conditions are maintained and coordinated through our dedicated UK based helpdesk providing 24/7 support.

Find out more about property and facilities management estate services here: https://community1st.co.uk/partnering-services/

T: 0161 8319722
E: info@community1st.co.uk
W: www.community1st.co.uk

#NHSEstatesServices #FacilitiesManagement #WorkingTogether #propertymanagement

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NHS Estate – backlog maintenance issues.

The NHS backlog maintenance bill has risen to over £9 billion, an increase of nearly 40% on the previous year’s costs, according to recently released figures from NHS Digital.

Backlog maintenance is measured by how much would need to be invested to restore a building to an optimum levels. It does not include planned maintenance work. You can read more here: https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/blog/2021/01/nhs-estate-backlog-grows-again.

Across Community 1st’s managed health estate our estate management, facilities and constructions teams have continued through these last ten months with adapted measures to work safely with Covid-19 to provide essential pre-planned maintenance and reactive support to our NHS occupied facilities. This has included completing capital works projects to integrate more primary care services into our centres, and undertaking planned backlog maintenance.

We work closely with our NHS partners to support estate improvement works and have, over the 15 years of our close partnership, managed a wide range of backlog maintenance programmes across Oldham, Sheffield and Cornwall on behalf of local NHS estate teams.

These works have ranged from statutory compliance and estate condition audits to boiler replacements, minor refurbishment works of GP and clinical spaces, window and roof replacements, and large full-scale total refurbishment projects.

Our local skilled teams are available to support our NHS estate partners tackle these increasing challenges and get programmed essential estate works back on track. As Community 1st is already a procured local partner, we can be easily directly appointed.

Contact our team to discuss any backlog maintenance requirements.

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LumiBio – Protecting staff and patients

As part of our continuous service improvement programme, earlier this year Community 1st gained exclusive access to an advanced Infection Prevention Control System that has been developed by a leading Biotech specialist.

Our aim was to improve and expand our estate service offering and be able to provide our local partners with access to an enhanced Infection, Protection and Control (IPC) System that would achieve and maintain clean, safe, and infection-controlled environments during the height of the pandemic and beyond.

Our local NHS partners have faced the daily challenge of delivering additional IPC measures to enable routine NHS services to continue, along with the delivery of Covid testing in some designated areas. The additional cleaning and disinfection methods have been required to protect staff and patients from infection risks whilst working and attending for treatment in these environments.

Whilst necessary, these traditional infection control methods have placed strain on an already burdened system and does not provide a continual or measured protection against infection risks in these critical clinical environments.

To assist with addressing this challenge Community 1st provided the LumiBio managed service to the Oldham Integrated Care Centre.

LumiBio is an advanced, safe, all-encompassing infection control system that integrates seamlessly into existing IPC methods and cleaning regimes.

LumiBio has been independently analysed and tested for efficacy and proven to eradicate a full range of pathogens including Sars-Cov-2.

LumiBio complies with Public Health England guidance but does not carry any of the risks or potential side effects that other sanitising and disinfection systems provide. It is PH neutral and does not contain any bleach, bleaching agents, no UV light and does not produce any harmful gas. It is not a ‘fogging’ system, it is not administered by anyone wearing PPE and it does not have any adverse effect on staff, patients, the environment, or equipment.

The LumiBio system works in live environments (meaning no downtime) unobtrusively and silently protecting staff and patients and the facility they are in.

How LumiBio works

LumiBio uses an ultrasonic dry misting system that reaches all surfaces, crevices and undersides, to give a protective coating. The treatment is bacteriostatic and immediately penetrates the cell membrane. Working against specific targets it prevents respiration, synthesis and reproduction causing comprehensive damage and cell death, whilst remaining safe to human contact. The complex arrangement of anti-microbial compounds in the treatment provides outstanding results, with at least a 99.999% kill rate on all tested pathogens.

Consistently achieving zero pathogen levels in high-risk clinical areas at the Oldham Integrated Care Centre (ICC)

The LumiBio dry mist units that administer the disinfection treatment were provided in critical clinical areas at the ICC, including the Hot Covid area. Normal cleaning regimes provided by FM and Clinical teams were not affected or adjusted, and no additional tasks were required by the teams working in these areas.

LumiBio treatments were administered following normal cleaning regimes and ran between 6.30am-7.30am. The efficacy of the LumiBio treatment was monitored by the normal managed service element of undertaking daily swab testing. This analysis records and compares the effectiveness of the LumiBio treatment against areas that were subject to traditional cleaning methods only.

The results have been outstanding. Since early August when the LumiBio service commenced at the ICC each area treated with LumiBio has recorded and maintained close to zero pathogen levels including the high risk Covid testing area. Areas subject to traditional cleaning methods only, have recorded spikes in pathogen levels even with traditional and deep cleaning regimes in place which has highlighted the potential for increased infection risks to staff and patients in these areas.

The graph above is an example demonstrating the variation in pathogen levels from Sample 13 clinical space which had daily deep cleaning, in comparison with Sample 2 taken from a HOT COVID area which had daily LumiBio treatment in addition to the deep cleaning regime that remained consistently close to zero.

Positive impact for staff and patients

Working with LumiBio, Community 1st has provided on site support and engagement for clinicians and users of the ICC throughout the introduction of the LumiBio service. This has enabled clinicians and staff to fully understand the safe and high impact nature of this IPC method, it has also provided evidence backed reassurance that the environment that they are working and providing critical treatments in are safe, continuously protected, and clean.

At the request of the clinicians working at the ICC, Community 1st has committed to continue to provide this service to the high-risk Covid area whilst discussions continue with our NHS partners with a view to roll out of the LumiBio service to other key sites such as vaccination hubs in the local area.

Want to know more?

To find out more about this effective wrap around Infection Prevention Control System and the impact it made at the Oldham Integrated Care Centre, contact the Community1st team.

E: info@community1st.co.uk

For more information about Lumibio and the benefits of using Lumibio in an NHS setting visit www.lumibio.com

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Meet the team

Bluesky Design Services are our healthcare estate partner and have been working closely with Community 1st for over 15 years. Together we have delivered over 510,000 sq ft of health and wellbeing estate in partnership with the NHS across Oldham, Sheffield, and Cornwall and Isles of Scilly.

Community 1st have worked with Bluesky Design Services on over 21 new build primary care facilities. The design of these buildings allows maximum future flexibility, enabling straightforward adaptations of the space. Bluesky continue to support ongoing smaller variation projects as services evolve, including bringing additional health services into centres.

Bluesky Design Services have a strong design portfolio across the healthcare sector. Projects range from new build design of large community based primary care facilities and acute hospitals as well as mixed-use wellbeing centres through to refurbishment and remodelling of small GP practices.

Director Alison Quinn leads the design team. Alison has over 20 years’ experience leading architectural design projects across the healthcare and other sectors. Our long-term partnership approach to working together with the Bluesky design team ensures we deliver service-led, patient-orientated design solutions matched to a commissioner’s service strategy.

Alison Quinn, Director, said: “We understand from the beginning of our long working relationship that adaptable design solutions were a priority for all stakeholders. Working together over the years we have seen the buildings evolve and adapt to changing needs, which prove the original designs delivered the right solutions.”

Get in touch:
enquiries@blueskydesignservices.co.uk
0161 475 0220
www.blueskydesignservices.co.uk

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We remain ‘open for business’

Community 1st continue to remain open for business during this national lock down period.

Our General Manager, Local Estate Management Team and 24/7 UK based helpdesk support team continue to provide essential estate management services to our local NHS partners health estate across Oldham, Sheffield, Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly.

We have put all necessary processes and PPE in place to comply with the governments guidance on managing the risk of COVID-19.

Our ‘Staying COVID-19 Secure in 2020’ risk assessments and operating procedures ensure our staff work safely at all times so that we can continue to provide essential estate services to support our local health estate NHS partners to keep critical health care facilities open.

Thanks to our dedicated estate teams for their professionalism and adaptability during these challenging times.

#Workingsafely #NHSEstateServices #WorkingTogether #Covid19secure

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Celebrating 15 Years!

October 2020 marks 15 years since Community 1st Sheffield started to invest in the transformation of the local health estate in Sheffield; working in partnership with the local NHS.

We are delighted to share some of our achievements from this decade and a half.

Community 1st Sheffield started construction on our first projects, Wincobank Medical Centre and Deepcar Medical Centre in late 2005. Since then we have delivered £79m of investment in six state-of-the-art health facilities across Sheffield. We continue to own 128,284 sq ft of health estate, which we maintain to the highest standards.

These years have seen considerable changes in primary care, both locally and nationally.  We are proud of our strong partnerships and links with the local community, who have worked with us to respond quickly and effectively to these changes. The most recent examples of this are the rapid adjustments made to our buildings to ensure they are ‘COVID safe’ for staff and patients.

Our buildings are home to a range of primary care and community services, providing local neighbourhoods in Sheffield with award-winning facilities. However, we don’t just deliver new build projects.

Over the years, we have provided a range of expert estate services, managing a variety of minor and major capital works projects across the local health estate on behalf of the NHS.

We are committed to working together with our local NHS and GP partners to support their changing estate needs. As a procurement cleared partner, we can be directly appointed without any delay.

In these challenging times, we look forward to continuing to offer a flexible, supportive estate service to meet NHS Long Term Plan goals and changing local service objectives.

#WorkingTogether #NHS #ExpertEstateServices #Celebrating15years #partnerships

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Infection, Prevention and Control

As part of our local expert estate services, we are continually looking at innovation in estate and facilities management services to provide the most responsive support to our local NHS partners and the changing challenges they face.

As part of our estate service offer, we can provide expert advice on Infection Control. We have exclusive access to an advanced Infection Prevention Control System that has been developed by a leading Biotech specialist.

The LumiBio managed service integrates seamlessly into current cleaning and infection control regimes. This system complies with Public Health England guidance but does not carry any of the risks or potential side effects that other sanitising and disinfection systems provide.

LumiBio neutralises all pathogens on contact and carries on neutralising for a further 5 days. Once neutralised the pathogen is eradicated. The system is administered automatically in a live environment, no need to clear any spaces.

As part of this service an evidence based audit trail is routinely provided confirming areas are clean, safe and pathogen levels controlled.

Now, more than ever Infection Control is critical to creating safe environments for patients and staff.

Want to know more?

To find out more about this effective wrap around Infection Prevention Control System, or generally how we can work with you to support your estate requirements, get in touch with the Community 1st team.

T: 0161 831 9722

E:  info@community1st.co.uk

For more information about Lumibio visit http://www.lumibio.com

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Adapting to Changing Service Needs  

Current climate

As a result of the Covid-19 response and out of necessity, the NHS has seen rapid and radical changes to the way in which services are managed and delivered. Examples of these changes are evident across all health and social care settings. The rapid changes were required to be able to achieve social distancing, non-essential contact, and the ability to maintain delivery of safe and high quality care for patients along with safe working practices for staff.

Changes in Primary Care during Covid-19

Guidance published from NHSE/I requested that General Practice move to the ‘Total Triage’ system as soon as possible to reduce footfall in practices and to ensure safe working environments for all staff in these buildings. These rapid changes in Primary Care and General Practice are evidenced by latest statistics showing a 600% increase in telephone and virtual consultations between 1st-31st March alone.

Across the board teams in General Practice have changed their working practices to continue to provide high quality care to patients and to ensure safe working environments for the staff. This has including the ability to work, consult and have access to patient records regardless of their location.

The availability of a national framework developed and agreed by NHSE/I enabled the quick access to a range of technology and software solutions to facilitate the changes quickly and efficiently along with tool kits and support channels to get these systems up and running as soon as possible.

As we move through to the next phases of dealing with this pandemic there is much discussion across all Health and Social Care sectors on what the future now looks like for the delivery of health and social care services. The consensus is that the gains and progress made around new technology and service delivery cannot be lost, along with the acknowledgement that social distancing will be a long term requirement.

The main questions regarding health and social care facilities: how do we move forward with design and planning either on new build projects or existing facilities for the current or future climate? In the absence of guidance and lessons learned from the current situation, how do we plan and design new facilities or adapt existing ones to provide safe and efficient, fit for purpose facilities?

Nationally the message is that the NHS cannot lose the progress already made around delivering new, efficient, and effective ways of working, and cannot be seen to revert to previous ways of working in inflexible constrained or environments that are considered unsuitable because new Covid-19 guidelines cannot be achieved.

As an established local estate partner to the NHS in Oldham, Sheffield and Cornwall and the Isles of Silly, Community 1st can support our partners to move forward in these uncertain times, to support our NHS colleagues to develop flexible service delivery strategies that are underpinned by robust operational and clinical policies, providing considered design solutions that allow flexible and appropriate changes and that can respond and adapt to service demand.

How?

Community 1st has always recognised strategic and operational healthcare planning to be the best practice in any new or re-designed health development, however in the current climate this process has never been more critical.

The pace at which the recent changes due to Covid-19 have been adopted means that there is a multitude of new working practices that have been adopted.

Current local working practices and policies, IT infrastructure and solutions, existing buildings, and workforce, along with what can be achieved quickly and successfully have all dictated which has been the most suitable way forward for our NHS colleagues in the current climate. As a result, this means that there has not been a ‘one size fits all’ solution, and neither should there be in the future.

The process that should be adopted now to allow longer term progression with the design or re-design of existing facilities, is for Community 1st to support our local NHS partners to provide a range of support services that are tailored to meet each of our partner’s needs.

This approach provides the ability to acknowledge the national direction of travel and potential future guidance but at the same time allows new development or re-design of existing facilities that are established around locally agreed clinical, operational and estate strategies that are appropriate to local arrangements. This enables any design solutions proposed, to build on existing flexibility in current primary care facilities and ensures that future flexibility in any new developments are embedded into the design process on day one.

Adopting this process allows Community 1st to support our partners with:

  • Evidenced based feasibility studies
  • HM treasury compliant business case analysis and development that supports funding applications and agreement

All of which ensures solutions are designed to deliver appropriate, fit for purpose, flexible, high quality clinical services that are unpinned by robust and agreed clinical and operational service strategies.

With our service support, Commissioners, Clinicians, and other stakeholders are provided with immediately available and experienced resource and support to allow them the time to review and establish appropriate local operational policies, development of robust and evidenced business cases that will deliver successful and considered service delivery strategies that meets local needs and the targets as set out in the NHS Long Term Plan.

Kate Edwards

Health Development Director

Want to discuss your changing health estate needs?

To find out more about how we can work with you to support your changing estate requirements, get in touch with the Community 1st team.

T: 0161 831 9722
E:  info@community1st.co.uk

 

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Contact Us

Community 1st

Building 1000, Yew St, Stockport SK4 2HG

Email: info@community1st.co.uk

North Team

T: 0161 831 9722

South Team

T: 01872 260 525

North Team

T: 0161 831 9722

South Team

T: 01872 260 525

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