Modernisation Initiative
Sexual Health Services
Location: Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, Lambeth Primary Care Trust , Southwark Primary Care Trust, King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and NHS London
Grantholder: Sir Jonathan Michael (former) Chief Executive, Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust
Award: £15,000,000
Start date: 01/11/2003
Project intentions: A major initiative to modernise health services in three key areas in Lambeth and Southwark, making improvements to kidney disease, sexual health and stroke services.
The sexual health project has brought together providers from across the acute and community sectors to identify where improvements could be made in the sexual health provision across the two boroughs. The main achievements were:
- The launch of the Camberwell Sexual Health Centre, which is run by King’s College Hospital, providing a sexual health on the high street in specially designed premises. Key improvements to the existing service include longer opening hours (9.30am – 9.00pm Monday to Friday), the use of touch screens giving sexual health information and a token operated ‘vending machine’ for simple diagnostics tests and condoms. The centre has set a precedent for sexual health provision across the two boroughs and three more centres in Vauxhall, Bermondsey and Streatham have been developed based on the same model.
- Pharmacists have been trained to offer more in the way of sexual health advice and screening including emergency contraception and testing for Chlamydia and gonorrhoea.
- Mystery shoppers have been engaged to provide constructive criticism of existing services and to evaluate the impact of new approaches. A mystery shopper toolkit provides guidance into how to set up their evaluation method.
- New guidelines and protocols have been introduced via a network of sexual health professionals across Lambeth and Southwark. These address services for the treatment of sexually transmitted infections; contraceptive provision and pregnancy testing. The group has expanded across SE London to enable ongoing user involvement.
Mystery Shopper toolkit
Mystery shopping provides robust, rapid and detailed feedback on the service user experience across the whole system of sexual health service provision. This toolkit aims to help commissioners, managers and service providers set up their own mystery shopping programmes and minimise the pitfalls associated with any new development.
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Download: Mystery Shopper toolkit |
Talking Heads booklet
This booklet was produced as a reflection of stakeholder engagement in the sexual health modernisation initiative programme and what it has achieved. It includes statements from sexual health clinicians, researchers, pharmacists, GPs and service managers.
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Download: Talking Heads booklet |
Sexual Health Competencies for registered staff
This framework has been developed to help improve the experience of service users and help ensure that local service providers deliver consistent, high quality information, advice and care. It has been designed to establish skills and build competencies essential for the delivery of sexual health services by a range of clinical and non clinical staff in various settings.
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Download: Sexual Health Competencies for registered staff |
Sexual Health Competencies for clinical support staff
This framework has been developed to help improve the experience of service users and help ensure that local service providers deliver consistent, high quality information, advice and care. It has been designed to establish skills and build competencies essential for the delivery of sexual health services by a range of clinical and non clinical staff in various settings.
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Download: Sexual Health Competencies for clinical support staff |
General learning from the Modernisation Initiative
In the last few months of the Modernisation Initiative (for kidney disease, stroke and sexual health services), David Jones, Director of Grant Making met with Director Fran Woodard to find out what she felt has been the main challenges faced and general learning from the initiative.
Their discussion was recorded and transcribed to provide other clinicians, managers, policy makers and academics involved in health service change with some insights into a range of issues including working across cross organisational boundaries, the importance of effective reporting mechanisms and achieving sustainability.
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Download the conversation here |
Modernisation Initiative website
Broad information on the aims and achievements of the three streams of the Modernisation Initiative is available on the Charity's website, or you can see a more detailed synopsis of achievements on the project website (which will remain live until December 2008).
End of Life Care
Building on the success of the last three years, the Charity’s Trustees have earmarked a further £15 million to tackle three more areas of health service modernisation via the same approach. The first area to be identified will tackle issues around End of Life Care - involving the acute and primary care sector, as well as representatives of the care home sector and relevant charities. A further two areas will be identified for transformation by 2012 at a cost of £10 million. More here