The start of ‘Community First’
Today is the first day of our new ‘Community First’ service in Derby, and we’d like to give a warm ‘Team DCHS’ welcome to the 169 colleagues joining us from Derby City Council.
The new service, led by Dominic Fackler on behalf of DCHS and Derby City Council, is part of our Community Care division and builds on years of work towards closer integration. It includes the Hospital to Home, Home First, and Perth House services, which previously sat with the council, and the Rapid Response services in Derby, previously part of our integrated community teams. Together they will now collectively be known as ‘Community First’.
This new service means we’re delivering some services on behalf of the council, supporting people to return home after hospital and to stay well at home for longer. It’ll mean a more efficient service, less duplication, increased capacity, and will ultimately support more people across Derby. It’s another step towards truly integrating the teams and now there will be further work with the services on how they develop together and become ‘one team’ operationally. That work will require ongoing support from teams across both DCHS and the council, both in ops and our enabling services.
It’s been a long journey to get here, and the teams have even been shortlisted for awards for their integration efforts over the years before reaching this stage. We’d therefore like to give a special mention to a few people who’ve helped get us to this point, some of whom have since retired or moved into new roles: Jackie Rawlings, Julie Knight (retired from City Council), Bec Spray, Dom Fackler, Jackie Jones, Jane Haywood, Sue Bliss, Jane Baldwin, Elaine Wesley, Jenna Fraser, Jess Ashton-Elvidge, Cathy Keenan, Jonathan Hargadon, Andy Muirhead, Jane Warder and Kirsty McMillan.
Kirsty McMillan will be formally joining DCHS as part of the partnership agreement with the council. She is our joint director of integration, will join the ops senior team and will lead the discharge transformation team as well as overseeing the assurance arrangement into the council for the delivery of Community First.