Rebuilding Health and Social Services in the Northern Trust – Phase 2
Our Phase 2 Plan covering July-September 2020, shows how we will continue the journey of rebuilding health and social care across all our services. Along with our partners across Northern Ireland, our priorities will remain:
- Ensuring equity of access for the treatment of patients across Northern Ireland
- Minimising the transmission of COVID-19, and
- Protecting the most urgent services.
We expect to be able to see more patients across July, August and September than in previous months as services begin to rebuild. However many of our services will still be running at lower levels of activity than before the pandemic. Social distancing rules mean we have to reduce the number of patients in our facilities at any one time. We need to ensure the correct PPE is used to protect our staff and service users, and in some areas this will take extra time and reduce the number of patients treated in each session.
We also need to stay prepared for a potential second surge which could coincide with winter pressures, meaning we cannot return all our services back to the way they were before the pandemic. We need to prioritise and focus on treating the most urgent cases first, and as a result some patients will wait longer than we would like.
NHSCT Rebuild Plan Phase 2 (PDF)
Looking Ahead
During July, August and September 2020, we will continue to build on new ways of working to continue to provide safe and effective care. This will involve working closely with our partners and clinical leaders, using flexible and remote working where appropriate and rapid scaling of technology such as telephone and video calls. We are engaging with our frontline staff to reflect on the many ‘lessons learned’ and further work on this will be crucial to inform our plans going forward. This learning and sharing of best practice will inform our longer-term operational, strategic and financial planning as well as the wider regional priorities.
We will also continue to engage with key partners, including Primary Care, Voluntary and Community Care, Independent sector and Trade Unions, to ensure that plans are representative of and include the valuable input of those who use our services.
The Trust is committed to its legal duties under Section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 as detailed in its approved Equality Scheme, and the Rural Needs Act 2016. In terms of assessment of the Northern Health and Social Care Trust Rebuild plan, the Trust will screen for both equality and rurality to identify potential adverse impact.
Related links
NHSCT Rebuild Plan Phase One June 2020
Minister launches strategic framework for rebuilding services 9 June 2020
10th July 2020