Where are we now?
We think most of you will be with us when we say that the Scottish weather this summer, so far, won't be memorable. But having said that, it's been a welcome period for the ECHO team to take some time out to reflect on what's gone well and what needs to happen as we head into the autumn months.
As we first mentioned in our launch piece, our work with Care Homes across four areas of Scotland, we were busy last year and continued to be while we work to help those areas establish themselves further. We learned a lot and our evaluation by the UHI was helpful in illuminating the way forward. Our new Digital Improvement Officer, Andrew, has taken steps to increase the accessibility of ECHO for social care staff by positioning Near Me groups on our care homes page. We are now looking at ways to align and understand social care ECHOs value alongside governance and training for the sector.
We ran our first test ECHO for Long COVID which provided us with insights into how we should go forward with further sessions.
Our Non Medical Prescribers ECHO continues to go from strength to strength and we enjoyed working with Dr Rory Gibson on Sustainability in Healthcare ECHO. Our Rural Fellows ECHO was another success from earlier this year, we were sorry to see our long term facilitator Dr Catherine Todd leave to go to pastures new but we have been delighted to welcome Dr Connor Gamble in her place for new sessions at the start of 2025.
So what's next and where to start?
We are kicking August off with a second round of scoping for Long COVID ECHO, focussing on GP's on the 28th of August and we hope to bring in additional subject experts from the US.
Non-medical Prescribing ECHO begins again in early September when we will welcome a new student cohort from the UHI Centre for Health Science.
We will be revisiting Macmillan Nurses ECHO, aiming for a programme launch date in October. There will be more information about this
We are also about to start scoping for our Informal Carers ECHO, where we will be utilising our learning from the European funded In Advance project and the Living Well programme, both of which we supported by delivering public facing knowledge exchange on palliative care.