Virgin Care's Care Co-ordination Centre (CCC) in East Staffordshire operates a seven-day call line, dealing with up to 250 patients every day from its base in Burton.
The Burton Mail was given a fascinating behind the scenes insight into its work.
The CCC is based in Anglesey Road and has been established in the town since a £270 million contract was signed which saw Virgin Care take control of a number of health services in East Staffordshire for the next seven years, from May 1, 2016.
Virgin Care - part of the Branson empire - revealed at an open meeting in October 2017 that the company had saved around 480 people from going into Staffordshire hospitals - and now bosses have confirmed they believe the number had risen dramatically.
Hundreds of people have been able to receive health services in their own home or necessary support to stop them from being admitted into hospital, according to the organisation.
Care provided at home includes treatment for people suffering from the likes of diabetes, heart failure and asthma, aimed to stop them having to unnecessarily visit hospital when there are other solutions.
The Burton Mail was given a tour around the CCC by workers at Virgin Care, to reveal exactly what work they do in the East Staffordshire region and how they hope to operate in 2018.
Kerry Till, the lead nurse and service lead at the CCC, said: "The care co-ordination centre was set up from May 1, 2016, when we came across from our old trust into Virgin Care, and the vision that it is a one-stop centre that everything comes through to co-ordinate.
"All referrals, any patients known to our district nursing team, our community matron teams, our therapy teams, they can all call us direct, they have to be on our caseload so it isn't just anyone who can ring up and say 'oh I've got a relative who isn't very well,' that would still go to the GPs.
"Then if the GPs felt they needed our assistance then they would ring through. We also take referrals for our colleagues in Age UK, which are our care navigation team, who are in the centre now."
The centre operates district nurses, who visit people in their own homes, and also patients from surgeries including Trent Meadows Medical Practice, Peel Croft Surgery, Gordon Street Surgery, King Street Surgery and All Saints Surgery, all medical practices based in Burton.
The service also deploys community matrons, who are experienced nurses and work closely with GPs to help link a patient up with the correct health professional to treat each individual case.
Adult continence treatment is provided by a specialist group of nurses available to patients specifically with a bladder or bowel issue, while the adult ability service is a community-based specialist nurse who deals with patients with neurological conditions, and both of these services are also run out of the CCC.
A learning disability specialist nurse is another professional under their control, who supports primary care services to meet the needs of people with learning disabilities, while a rapid response team offers a quick response to patients within two hours.
Mrs Till outlined the chain of events which took place whenever a patient calls up the centre.
"Say it's a community patron patient because they're probably the easier ones to deal with.
"They would ring the CCC, it would then be passed on to one of the nurses in the CCC who would clinically triage the call.
"If she felt a visit was warranted and the patient is quite unwell, it would either be passed on to our matron of the day in the CCC, they would go out and visit or it would be passed to their existing matron, because sometimes if the patients are discharged, the patients will still have our number.
"So they'll still ring in, if it's deemed that it's quite a quick response that is needed, we will dispatch rapid response to them, and they will go out and assess the patient and take it from there.
"Patients still ring 999 if they feel really unwell, then the paramedics have got the opportunity that they can call us, and discuss the patient with us, then if they don't need to go to the emergency department, we again will dispatch the right staff that’s out there to assess the patient.
"So it enhances the patient's journey really, they'll speak to someone who doesn't necessarily know them, but we know of them. If we can't deal with that call, it'll be passed to the right person, to deliver the right care and stop the hospital admission.
"Paramedics ring in to us quite regularly, even if it's just for advice or to signpost where a patient might want an X-ray so we will take that off them and we will liaise with the GP so they can just sign off and get onto their next job. When they get the call, they know if they’re known to the agency.
"There's a red key ring that says 'I'm known to a community matron' and it has the CCC number on, which the patients are also supposed to have on them when they get to an emergency department.
"But we've done a lot of work with Queen's, in Burton, so now at the hospital it will come up on their system it will say all of our matrons' caseloads, so it alerts as soon as the patient hits the emergency department, it will alert that they are known to a community matron to contact us.
"We've also done a lot of work with West Midlands Ambulance, who also have a key ring now too, that says something like 'not for ED, call the CCC', it's just to try and co-ordinate the care and to stop those admissions."
She said the centre had a "positive" working relationship with Queen's Hospital, in Burton.
Some Virgin Care staff members are based in the Belvedere Road hospital who help with swiftly despatching patients and getting them home as early as possible, once they are safe to do so.
Commenting on the proposed merger between the Burton hospital and its Derby counterpart, Mrs Till said she believed the process could impact the CCC, with more patients falling under a planned single hospital trust combining the two, as "more acute patients might go to Derby so we might get referrals for our area, so if they want to get people out of hospital quicker, then that will impact on us."
She insisted that regardless of the landscape with the two trusts, the CCC would continue to adapt and put patient safety first.
The centre employs eight callers on the admin team, with ideally six people working at any time if possible, but since its opening in May, 2016, Mrs Till said it had received mixed feedback from patients.
She said: "It's mixed to be honest, I think a lot of the patients in the town area seem to have sort of taken it on board and really quite like it, because obviously sometimes you can appreciate that if they've got a certain member of staff's personal number, if the member of staff is in an area that isn't connecting, they could be on holiday, they could be anywhere, it's easier for them to ring here.
"We've had some disgruntled patients, out in the villages, but I think we need to do some more work with them, and it's the fact of the availability of the staff.
"They prefer to speak with the nurse, but it's all just sometimes not convenient, if the staff are already in the middle of addressing somebody and the phone goes, and it's a patient they can’t answer anyway, so it's easier to call here, then the calls are negotiated and we call the staff.
"We began with two admin at the start that we had to ship in from other areas and we now have eight.
"We now do seven days a week, except for bank holidays and we are operating from 8am until 6pm, Monday to Friday, and weekends 8.30am until 4.30pm.
"Once the CCC is officially closed, numbers will divert to our rapid team, because they are 24 hours.
"So if the patient calls up if they have a blocked catheter for example after 6pm, the message says 'if you need to speak to a nurse, please press one, for any other queries please press two', so they can leave a message if they just want to change an appointment."
