NHS Dumfries & Galloway

Why did we join ECHO?

Our aspiration is to:

• Share knowledge across a rural setting, with 2481 square miles, 210 miles of coastline, and one general hospital located in Dumfries - wherein much clinical expertise is centred
• Extend health and care relationships both geographically and professionally
• Use presentations from clinical experts to move, share and discuss knowledge and clinical practices
• Use case-based based reviews to flatten hierarchy and to maximise sharing of professional knowledge with healthcare professionals

We saw that the ECHO community, its principles and proven approach is a great fit as part of our vision and current service redesign activities.

In addition, it delivers a key outcome for us maximising the wider team’s clinical effectiveness across the region, in a way that is future-proof, and reduces pressure around recruitment challenges.

History of ECHO in Dumfries & Galloway

Within Dumfries and Galloway, Project ECHO was funded through mPower from January 2021 to June 2022. An ECHO Facilitator (Fiona Palmer) was in post 15 hours per week from January 2022 until June 2022 and an IT/ Administrator (Sheena McCubbin) was in post 7.5 hours per week from December 2021 to June 2022.
 

Within this time frame:

Two ECHO programmes were delivered along with 2 taster sessions.

ECHO programmes:

1. Diabetes ECHO participants included ANP’s, Pharmacists & Practice Nurses. It was an 8 week programme, devised by participants who attended a planning session. 138 people attended across the 8 sessions with between 11-22 individuals at each session.

2. Care home ECHO participants for Carers. The programme was devised around care learning needs identified in conjunction with Care Home managers. 3 Care Homes from across D&G, 1 Care Home in Ayrshire and Arran and 1 Care Home in Tayside attended for a 3 week programme, with 75 people attending across the 3 sessions and an average of 25 individuals per session.

Taster sessions:

Community Nursing - Community Diabetes Nurses were asked to supply training on management plans. Session delivered in ECHO format adapting principles / ethos of ECHO with 31 people attending the session.

Student Nurses – Diabetes Specialist Nurses receive request to facilitate students for 1 day. There was some debate over whether this provides a rounded overview of Diabetes, therefore an ECHO Taster session was offered to gauge students learning needs. 14 students attended the session from year 1 to year 3 with exposure to Diabetes being variable.  (Reference 2 FP journey)

Current and Planned Work

At the end of 2023, we held a 4 session ECHO series on topics relating to care homes aimed at staff working in care. The sessions included: Diabetes, Tissue Viability, Palliative Care and Falls awareness. This was run as a part of the Scottish Government's My Health, My Care, My Home strategy and proved to be a great success in terms of outreach;  we are aiming to run more sessions in a similar vein soon.