As of Monday 3 December Intermediate Care and Therapy services at The Countess have transferred to the Cheshire West Integrated Care
Partnership (CWICP). Hosted by the Countess, the Cheshire West Integrated Care Partnership is a collaboration of health and care organisations with the same, shared goals:
- To support people to live longer, healthier lives
- To improve people’s experiences of care
- To safeguard the future of the local health and care system
The CWICP involves The Countess, Cheshire and Wirral Partnership, the two local GP federations and Cheshire West and Chester Council.
As part of a phased approach the management of Countess staff working in Intermediate Care and Therapies will transfer. This will be the first visible change to the way services are to be delivered in the future. The first phase focuses on services that help deliver our priorities around community and primary care, support to older people and improving the management of long term conditions. This includes:
- Countess Inpatient and outpatient Therapists
- Intermediate care Units IMCU (ward 34) Poppy and Bluebell
- Rapid Response team
- Community Therapies (Cardiac rehabilitation, Respiratory and Stroke ESD, Community Nutrition and Diabetes, Community OT and Physio Paediatric therapy)
- Integrated Discharge Team
- Hospital AT Home (from 1April 2019)
The Intermediate Care and Therapies leadership will remain with the Associate Director of Service Delivery, Integrated Care Alison Swanton who is now accountable to Alison Lee Managing Director of the CWICP. The CWICP services will continue to work closely with the divisions within the Countess supporting patient pathways in the same way but with the added benefit of being able to work closely with community and GP colleagues to support more patients in the community.
There will be no change in employment, immediate line management or professional leadership for those staff included in this change.