‘Home care is best’ campaign – Cough and Cold Boxset

Self Care Forum Board member and Vice President of the National Association for Primary Care (NAPC) devised a boxset for coughs and colds for use in his surgery.

The surgery is highly progressive in its attempts to educate patients into looking after their health, and the cough and cold exercise is the latest in their endeavours.  Called “home care is best”, the boxset comprises a poster, a presentation on “antibiotics and respiratory tract infections” and a series of factsheets to inform patients of their symptoms including red-flags and duration. Lastly, the boxset also includes the NICE guidance for upper respiratory tract infections.

Talking about the initiative, Dr Smith said “This campaign was developed for our practice to deliver consistent messages to patients about some very common self-treatable illnesses. We don’t call them ‘minor’ as they don’t feel that way to the patient.”

Patients seem to have responded positively to the campaign, “the poster has had a great impact” commented Dr Smith “with some patients starting a consultation with “Looking at your poster, I probably didn’t need to come in. I had no idea these illnesses lasted so long. I’ll know next time”.

Colleagues in the surgery also feel the exercise has been successful saying “it’s so powerful to have the real evidence to present to patients”.

Dr Smith is happy for others to use the boxset although asks that people use their good clinical judgement when doing so.

Download the boxset resources below:

• Antibiotics and RTIs
• Cough fact sheet
• Ear infection fact sheet
• NICE care pathway for RTIs
• Prescribing for RTIs summary
• Evidence based advice on RTIs
• Sore throat fact sheet

Case studies from 2010

In 2010 the Self Care Campaign conducted case studies around the country to gather examples of self care in practice. Please click on the links below to see the case studies in full.

Do you have an interesting example of how self care works at your practice or an initiative you would like to tell us about?
We would love to add your case study to the website so that we can continue to learn from each other.  Please contact Libby Whittaker at libby.whittaker@selfcareforum.org or on 020 7421 9318.

Bromley by Bow Centre
At the Bromley by Bow centre, which is situated in an unexpectedly lush and tranquil setting among the high rise blocks of East London, promotion of self care threads its way through every aspect of patient care. Read the full case study here.

Culm Integrated Centre for Health
At Culm Integrated Centre for Health there is an awareness among all staff that a conventional prescription is not the most appropriate or effective course of action for many patient ailments. As a result, education runs throughout the practice with patients firmly encouraged to take an unprecedented interest in solving their problems for themselves. Read the full case study here.

Nuffield Road Medical Centre
At Nuffield Road Medical Centre, Cambridge, encouraging self care in patients is a team effort in which clinical and admin staff all have important roles. Read the full case study here.

Thornley House Medical Centre
At Thornley House Medical Centre in Hyde, Dr Amir Hannan has developed an innovative website (www.htmc.co.uk) to act as a first port of call for self care. An ever growing and changing resource that is able to respond to patient needs, the website has the full backing of all practice staff and gradually the message about self care is starting to get through. Read the full case study here.

Green Bank Surgery
The staff at Green Bank Surgery, Warrington, work closely with the community to find out what services they need to stay well and self care. Read the full case study here.

Bracknell and Ascot GP Commissioning Consortium
The GP commissioners at Bracknell and Ascot are committed to self-care and trial self-care initiatives as pilots before rolling them out consortium-wide. Read the full case study here.

Cumbria Senate
Cumbria Senate is a GP-led organisation that sits above Cumbria’s six clinical consortia. The Senate faces many health challenges unique to Cumbria’s locality and population, and so has developed innovative ways of commissioning self-care. Read the full case study here.

Are you a Champion for Self Care? Do you want to join the Self Care Movement? Email libby.whittaker@selfcareforum.org