Connect Health has developed a unique set of clinical support tools covering the top 10 most common conditions in order to deliver and measure the most clinically effective care.
Clinical Services
Connect Health offers a range of clinical services spanning musculoskeletal (MSK) health, rheumatology, pain, mental health and long Covid services.
Clinical Expertise
As the UK’s largest and most experienced independent leading community healthcare provider, our services incorporate a specialist, clinically lead multi-disciplinary team (MDT) consisting of the below:
- Physiotherapists
- GPwER (GPs with extended role)
- Occupational therapists
- Sports and exercise medicine doctors
- Advanced clinical practitioners
- Pain consultants
- Rheumatology consultants
- Psychological Wellbeing Practitioners
- Nurses
- Rehab therapists
- Podiatrists
- Pharmacists
- Clinical Psychologists
- Chiropractors
- Osteopaths
- Consultant Practitioners
Quality Improvement
Our quality ethos drives clinical and patient outcomes. As a commitment to this ethos, each of our teams undertake an annual quality improvement (QI) project focused on ensuring that our services improve the care and experience of our patients.
Clinical Support Tools
Connect Health has developed a unique set of clinical support tools covering the top 10 most common conditions in order to deliver and measure the most clinically effective care.
MSK Clinical Support Tools
Cutting clinical variation and improving patient care.
Clinical expertise
"It's great being able to reassure the patient from the outset that they are receiving the right treatment."
Sue Campbell, Senior Physiotherapist, who developed the lateral epicondylitis guideline
The problem
Clinical Variation
Clinical supervision is subjective and limited monitoring Clinical supervision has been proven to promote a healthy culture for development, improve competence of staff and reduce clinician stress and sickness rates, but NOT been proven to address variation in practice.
Patients should have equity of access to care across the UK regardless of where the live
Patients who live in areas of deprivation are much less likely to have a knee or hip replacement than from affluent population areas.*
Information overload
7,000 good quality MSK Randomised Control Trails are produced per YEAR in English alone
It takes 17 years to translate evidence based practice into routline clinical practice and National Clinical Guidelines produce updates every 3 years
If you read one article per day, you’d be 20 years behind, so we neede to close this gap and help our clinicians have evidence at finger tips.
Read about our clinical support tools here
Clinical Governance
Delivering high-quality care is at the centre of what we do at Connect Health. With our innovative clinicians and pioneering approach to transformation and innovation, our clinical delivery is cutting edge. It is important therefore that we assure what we do, identify where things can be improved, and implement a robust approach that takes delivers that improvement.
Our Clinical Leadership team are supported by an array of supporting teams such as our operational, business intelligence and Smartdust colleagues to ensure that there is a real-time awareness of clinical quality, safety and patient experience so that we can identify areas that require our focus and bring about impactful change. This enables us to achieve excellent clinical outcomes with our patients.
Read more about the need to focus on Quality Improvement in our blog
Clinical Outcomes
Here we feature our partnerships in the NHS
Putting patients at the centre with Personalised Care
Personalised care is one of the five major, practical changes to the NHS, as set out in the NHS Long Term Plan with an ambition to reach 2.5 million people by 2023/24 and then aims to double that again within a decade.
Personalised care means people have choice and control over the way their care is planned and delivered. It is based on ‘what matters’ to them and their individual strengths and needs.
Find out more
Efficiency and innovative partnerships, working together to launch the Brent Integrated Musculoskeletal Service
Streamlining services to cut waiting lists and onward referrals in Brent.
NHS Brent ICB (Integrated Care Board) is responsible for a population of approximately 375,305 patients across 54 practices. They selected Connect Health in January 2019 to provide the Community Physiotherapy Service for the patients of Brent. In October 2019 the contract was extended to include a Tier 2 Clinical Assessment and Triage Service (CATS) which provides a single point of access gateway for musculoskeletal (MSK) health, rheumatology, pain, women’s health, orthopaedics and diagnostics.
Read the full case study
Raising the quality of MSK services in Hammersmith & Fulham
We have been working with Hammersmith & Fulham since May 2016 and this comprehensive case study highlights achievements in the first year, the challenges of MSK, the journey to tendering, the elements of the service and the positive impact on patients.
For the first year of the service significant improvements have been made;
- Reductions in secondary care referrals by GPs year on year
- 14% reduction in Trauma & Orthopaedics
- 19% reduction in Rheumatology
- Reduction in MRI expenditure
- 31% reduction Apr 15-Jan 16 compared with Apr 16-Jan 17
- 46% reduction in Jan 16 v Jan 17
- Reduction in waiting times for MSK services, despite increase in activity
- 99% RTT (referral to treatment) rate
- 85% of patients are seen in physio clinic within 3 weeks from GP referral
Read the full case study
Working in partnership with Nottingham
Connect Health demonstrates further operational efficiencies and improves patient outcomes.
Working in partnership with Nottingham West and Nottingham North & East (NW & NNE) to provide the MSK service since April 2016, Connect Health is proud to release updated figures relating to efficiencies and outcomes, up to April 2019.
Updated figures: Achievements 16/17 – 18/19
Read the original case study
Education
The Connect Health Academy is our enhanced learning and development suite – a place for all colleagues to Discover, Grow and Thrive within Connect Health.
The Connect Health Academy enables:
- an inclusive environment to explore and develop careers within Connect Health and beyond
- all colleagues the ability to expand their knowledge, skills and capabilities to be the best they can be
- improved quality of care for our patients while enhancing learning for our multi-professional workforce
- a “Great Place to Work”
The Academy is more than a system, it is a place where our colleagues can Discover, Grow and Thrive. They can develop their skills and knowledge and explore new areas of interest. It is fully accessible and is inclusive to all our colleagues.
Aims of the Academy
Read more about the Academy
Student placements
We have a comprehensive student placement programme in place with face to face options now available. We have relationships with HEIs throughout the UK and provide up to 200 students placements a year that span across a number of professions.
During a student placement, students can access education via our Academy and are encouraged to contribute towards it during their time with us.
We have a dedicated group of placement supervisors within Connect who are able to provide an excellent student experience.
We have now returned to in-clinic only student placements which are organised directly with higher education institutes (HEIs). Please ask your HEI if they send students on Connect Health placements if you are interested in coming on a placement with us.
Read more about our Virtual Student Placements
View our Connect Health Change webinar on Education – 10.02.21
Research
Connect Health has established itself as an organisation publishing research on a regular basis, with the outcomes used to understand, adapt, and improve clinical delivery across community healthcare as well as the development of effective patient treatment programmes, at a local and national level. Research leadership across Connect Health is provided by Andrew Cuff (Director of Clinical Strategy). As part of our five-year strategy, we expect our research output and impact to continue to maintain momentum.
In 2021-22, we had our most productive and impactful year research wise with 20+ publications in a variety of peer-reviewed journals as well as at national and international conferences. We successfully obtained our first research grant and have supported opportunities for 25% of our workforce to be research active within their practice.
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