October got off to a good start with more caring and sharing at Brunel University. Our Brunel Older Reference Group seminar was very well attended with retirees from all walks of life, careers and heaps of experience. We had a good array of researchers presenting their work on the ageing process, health & wellbeing. That wellbeing was recognised as not only physical & mental but social too.
I was sat near a retired Health Visitor and a retired nurse midwife like myself. Coffee break natters were on our careers and how the NHS has become more fragmented rather than unified. So in my ideas to the researchers I felt we needed to design integrated care pathways. Brunel itself has multidisciplinary departments, now with a medical school as well as nursing, physiotherapy, occupational therapy then the university is in a good position to tackle fragmentation of care. We also identified that there are many private agencies in the NHS which means constant change of clinical staff interacting with patients. This creates a weakness of lack of continuity of care and patients often having to go over history time and time again to establish rapport.
The researchers also look at maximising wellbeing in the ageing process and we are all grateful for this. We feel listened to and valued.
