We will be working in partnership with Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust to re-design services and deliver improved outcomes for people living with Crohn's and Colitis. The aim is to put people affected by Crohn's and Colitis in control of their care by working in partnership with their IBD team.
We want to design a structure for people to tell IBD teams what is important to them, their families and carers; and to ensure their voice is heard in appointments. This will include using an app designed by software development company Epigenesys to collect information and deliver it to doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals.
Uniquely, people with Crohn's and Colitis will be trained by the Sheffield Microsystems Coaching Academy to help steer the changes. Larger scale engagement will run alongside, with all 4,000 patients from the Trust being invited to engage with the project, and advocacy support from VoiceAbility to make sure we are hearing from people with Crohn's and Colitis of all ages, genders, and ethnicities. The Crohn's and Colitis community is huge and diverse and this project aims to represent all.
Evaluation will show how, and by how much, putting patients in control of their care improves outcomes. This will be led by the School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR) at the University of Sheffield. Most of the funding received from the Health Foundation will support our partners to deliver this work.
People with Crohn's and Colitis are experts by lived experience, so they know what makes a good and bad experience of care. To make real change in the way we re-design IBD services, we need to work with these experts -people like you -so that the services of the future are based on what matters to you. This project has the potential to teach us lessons we can use across the UK and is a unique opportunity for thousands of people with Crohn's and Colitis to get involved and lead to real changes. We're grateful to the Health Foundation for selecting us to take forward this incredibly important work.
Sarah Sleet
CEO at Crohn's & Colitis UK
Whilst the project is being delivered in Sheffield, we will ensure that the voices of people living with Crohn's and Colitis across the UK are heard and will share regular news and updates with you. There will also be opportunities for some of you to get involved, so please look out for information on this.
The Health Foundation is an independent charity committed to bringing about better health and health care for people in the UK. And Common Ambition focusses on partnerships where people, families, healthcare professionals and researchers work together to improve health care.
