Joanna, new apprentice at Dorset Council

National Apprenticeship Week: A view from new digital apprentices

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Working at Dorset Council is an ideal place for two new digital apprentices, Joanna Holmes and Jade House, who joined Dorset Council in the autumn.

Joanna has been really impressed with how friendly and helpful people have been in the Digital Team: “There’s no such thing as a stupid question and they encourage us to ask questions and learn.

“When we arrived, to help us settle in we had weekly apprentice catch-ups with our Senior Content Designers (Susie and Natalie), which was really helpful.”

And Jade, who has ADHD and Asperger’s, feels they have made reasonable adjustments to help her settle into the team well. Jade said: “If they send a message, they’ll put a smiley face, to show the tone.” Continue reading “National Apprenticeship Week: A view from new digital apprentices” →

National Apprenticeship Week logo

National Apprenticeship Week

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National Apprenticeship Week, which runs from February 6-12, is a great chance to celebrate opportunities available at Dorset Council and the benefits and values of completing one.

This year’s theme is “Skills for Life”, focussing on the skills that can be learnt by completing an apprenticeship and how these skills will last a lifetime and help develop careers.

We have three case studies that we’ll be promoting next week, ranging from new apprentices who joined the local authority last autumn, to those whose careers have been kick-started by an apprenticeship and who are now playing prominent roles in our shared care record and the digital and change environment. We also have one exciting announcement to make….

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Gareth Curt, NHS England

Webinar: Top tips for Benefits Realisation

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In this webinar, Gareth Curt, NHS England Shared Care Records Programme Benefits Analyst explores how Benefits Realisation Management (BRM) is applied against reality, discussing the challenges faced and top tips for doing BRM well.

He focuses on the purpose of BRM and the different roles we all play in delivering effective change.

Recruitment day at BIC on 25 January, 2023

NHS and Care Recruitment Event

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Local NHS and care organisations have teamed up to bring a host of new job opportunities across the health and care sector.

Whether you’re new or returning to care, come to the Our Dorset open event at the Bournemouth International Centre on Wednesday 25 January to talk about career options.

If you’re looking for a fulfilling career where you can make a vital difference, come and visit the stands and talk to the Our Dorset team, who will be there from 9am-7pm. There is free parking plus the potential of interviews and offers on the day with flexible options with hours to suit you.

Book now at joinourdorset.nhs.uk/care/

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Dorset Council

Dorset Council adult alerts added to the Dorset Care Record

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Adult alerts from Dorset Council have been added to the Dorset Care Record (DCR) from today.

The new feed will allow GPs and other health professionals to know whether adult social care is involved with a specific patient and in what circumstance, based upon the alert that is now available in the system.

Sharing this type of information can also enable early interventions to prevent the escalation of risk, coordinate effective and efficient responses across our health and social care partnership and prevent abuse and harm that may increase the need for care and support. Continue reading “Dorset Council adult alerts added to the Dorset Care Record” →

Dorset County Hospital

Additional alerts from DCH available in the DCR

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Nearly 70 alerts have been added to the Dorset Care Record this week by one of our key health partners, Dorset County Hospital (DCH). The additional alerts, which have been added to an existing feed, include allergy alert types, such as hay fever, latex, house dust, bees and wasps and adhesives, to help increase awareness among clinicians.

Other alerts that have been added include those around specific medical conditions, including possible cases of tuberculosis and previous pressure ulcer alerts, Munchausen syndrome and mental disorders, child safeguarding and social alerts, such as patient notes, armed forces information and patients who have multiple aliases.

The additional alerts mean that DCH now provides nearly 100 different alerts into the shared care record.

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myDCR logo for the DCR patient portal

Piloting myDCR – Our Patient Portal: Mark’s story

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Since the summer we have been piloting our patient portal, myDCR, involving more than 200 residents across Dorset, trialling different elements with specific patients. In our final case study of the year, Mark talks about how he has found myDCR and improvements he’d like to see.

Mark first heard about myDCR via an email invite to sign up from his Dorset County Hospital clinician Rebecca, who works at the Dorchester Diabetes Centre.

He was invited to trial the sharing of images and photographs, sent by the podiatry clinic, and found the initial sign-up process was simple to access from the link supplied in the invitation email. Continue reading “Piloting myDCR – Our Patient Portal: Mark’s story” →

NHS England logo

New webinar: Shared Care Records – Top tips for Benefits Realisation Management

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We are delighted to welcome Gareth Curt, NHS England Shared Care Records Programme Benefits Analyst, who will lead our next webinar on Wednesday 18 January from 1pm.

His focus will be around the purpose of Benefits Realisation Management (BRM) and the different roles we all play in delivering effective change. They will explore how BRM is applied  against reality, discussing the challenges faced and top tips for doing BRM well. By the end of the session, attendees will hopefully have a better understanding of the value of a benefits-led approach in helping create and drive stories for change.

For invite, please contact Tony McDougal, DCR Communications and Engagement Manager – tony.mcdougal@dorsetcouncil.gov.uk

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Andy Cowling, DCR head of service

Dorset Care Record – Review of the Year 2022

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In our final think-piece of 2022, our Head of Service Andy Cowling looks back at some of the success stories of the past year and ahead to some of the interoperability plans to further enhance the Dorset Care Record

I can’t believe that it has been 12 months since I was asked to write the last one of these – time certainly flies in the world of the Dorset Care Record (DCR).

First off, let’s look at some of our key statistics for the year:

  1. We have increased our average daily uses from 2,000 to over 3,000 which shows a significant 50% improvement
  2. We have generated over £2.7m in non-cash releasing benefits for the Dorset system
  3. We have managed to surpass a major milestone in training over 5,000 health and social care professionals
  4. We have delivered nine pilots, involving real patients, for our patient portal myDCR.

These statistics will grab the headlines and myself and the team are rightly proud of them but they don’t tell the whole story – just the end results of all of the hard work that the PMO, Orion Health and our partners put into the programme every day. Continue reading “Dorset Care Record – Review of the Year 2022” →

DCR logo

Automatic publishing of documents available through DCR

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We have over the weekend successfully introduced several new features into the Dorset Care Record:

Automatic publishing of documents.

Documents such as inpatient discharge summaries and clinical letters can now be automatically made available to patients in myDCR following the release 9 deployment.  This is important as it is one of the key enablers for rolling out the patient portal (myDCR) to a wider audience.  After the release, the acute hospitals will be able to decide which documents can be published automatically.  It is anticipated that in the first instance, this will include clinic letters for diabetes and rheumatology and results for cancer patients using the remote monitoring service and inpatient discharge summaries. Continue reading “Automatic publishing of documents available through DCR” →