Nursing home REaCH service

The aim of the Nursing Home REaCH team is to enhance the skills set of registered nurses within nursing homes to improve the patient experience by preventing residents attending the Emergency Department when this could potentially have been avoided.

REaCH is the Responsive Education and Collaborative Health programme for Nursing Home Registrants.

Currently the team is actively engaged with 58 nursing homes in the Northern Trust area.

The REaCH team work in partnership with others, to develop training programmers for the care home registrants. The training for nursing home champions involves five training days focusing on enhancing clinical skills, long term condition management and recognising and responding to the deteriorating resident in the care home. Bespoke masterclasses are also delivered as a need arises.

Team members provide visible support to nursing home staff to facilitate competency attainment and training within the care home environment. The team engage with acute hospital colleagues to support patient’s hospital discharge, where a new training need for care home staff has been identified.

The REaCH service has had a positive and sustained impact on patients and their families and has proactively avoided emergency department attendances, allowing patients to seek treatment in the comfort of their nursing home environment.