Bristol Health Partners to invest £176k in its Health Integration Teams

Health Integration Teams (HITs) are set to benefit from £176k of investment from Bristol Health Partners in 2019-20. HITs requested funding from the partnership for a wide variety of projects, with the majority receiving funding. Further funding will be available later in the year, particularly for new HITs and those who didn’t make an application in this funding round.

Five HITs that represent older people or patient groups, including Dementia, Parkinson’s and Other Movement Disorders and Active Older People, will benefit from support from Subitha Baghirathan. Subitha has a strong track record of working with older people of Black, Asian and other minority ethnic origins living in Bristol on health-related research projects. She has already worked with the Dementia HIT on several projects, including developing culturally appropriate materials about dementia. She will help these HITs engage and involve people from diverse communities.

Other projects include:

• Evaluating the Dementia HIT’s Real Life with Dementia training for carers which has been run in South Gloucestershire, with a view to scaling it up and rolling it out to Bristol and North Somerset
• Healthy Neighbourhood Environments (SHINE HIT) project to raise awareness of the consequences of exposure to poor air quality, particularly for children living in congested neighbourhoods
• Support the Sexual Health Improvement Programme (SHIP) HIT bid for HIV Fast Track City Status for the Bristol city area, to reduce the rate of new HIV infections and reduce stigma
• IRIS ADViSE is an evidence-based training intervention to support staff in sexual health services to recognise and respond to women affected by domestic violence and abuse. SHIP HIT will extend this locally developed intervention across Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire (BNSSG)
• Stroke HIT will map routinely collected data against the stroke care pathway to understand how that routine data can be used to provide baseline data for the stroke service redesign
• The Drug and Alcohol HIT will improve access, uptake and completion of alcohol detox in primary and secondary care, implementing a RADAR type model of detox for BNSSG
• The Active Older People (APPHLE) HIT will pilot community health implementation of their REACT project to reduce or reverse mobility-related disabilities in older people, to test the feasibility of embedding this approach into the BNSSG frailty pathway
• The Improving Perinatal Mental Health (IMPROVE) HIT will bring together local professionals to share best practice, aimed at improving service provision for women who don’t have a child, whether through perinatal death or having their child taken into care

David Wynick, chair of the Bristol Health Partners Executive Group, said:

“I have been particularly impressed with the very high standard of the HIT applications this year. The range of the projects submitted demonstrates a determination to affect real change in our local health system.

“So many of these projects are united by the theme of bringing evidence into practice and changing the way things are done to benefit patients and the wider population. It will certainly be an interesting year for our HITs, and I would like to thank them for playing such an active part in the funding application process.”