Department of Healthcare for Older People at University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust

The Department of Healthcare for Older People is made up of highly-trained members of staff who specialise in the healthcare of older people. The department sits across all our hospital sites (Good Hope, Solihull, Heartlands and Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham) and in the community.

With a progressive outlook guided by the experiences of older people and their carers, the department has a strong emphasis on the education and development of staff.

Our vision

Our vision is for older people to be as happy and healthy as possible, living self-sufficient, independent lives, able to have choice and control over what they do and what happens for them.

Our team

Working to achieve our vision, we have a multi-disciplinary team which includes doctors, nurses, therapists, social workers and pharmacists, amongst many others.

We have Older People’s Assessment and Liaison (OPAL) teams in all our Emergency Departments and Acute Medical Units. The teams see older people as soon as they arrive and liaise closely with community services to enable a ‘home-first’ approach.

To see a list of our Older People’s Consultants please use our Consultant Directories:

• For Good Hope, Solihull and Heartlands Hospitals – https://hgs.uhb.nhs.uk/gps/
• For Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham – https://www.uhb.nhs.uk/consultant-directory.htm?cat=Geriatric%20medicine

Eat Drink Dress Move

Although a home environment is usually the best place for older people to receive care, hospitals are the right place to be when patients have acute medical or surgical needs. Therefore, some older people will need to be admitted to our inpatient wards.

When this happens, we know it is important for older people to keep as active as possible and to encourage this on our wards we have launched the Eat Drink Dress Move campaign:

• https://www.uhb.nhs.uk/news/eat-drink-dress-move-video-launched.htm
• http://www.uhs.nhs.uk/Media/SUHTInternet/News/Eat-drink-move-poster.pdf

Getting you home

When your treatment has been completed, it is important that your stay is not delayed for any reason. Therefore it is good practice to start planning your discharge as soon as you come into hospital or even before you arrive. This means that we:

• Listen to any concerns that you may have at the earliest opportunity
• Assess what your needs are likely to be when you are ready to leave
• Involve relevant staff who can help in meeting those needs
• Give an indication of when you will be ready to leave the hospital
• Make arrangements for equipment or services to be ready when you leave

Would you like to work with us?

We are always looking for enthusiastic people who want to make a real difference to the lives of older people.

Please see NHS Jobs for current vacancies https://www.jobs.nhs.uk/

For more information about working for the Trust, please visit https://www.uhb.nhs.uk/jobs.htm

For information about nursing jobs at UHB, please visit: http://www.nursing.uhb.nhs.uk/

Are you interested in becoming a volunteer? Please see our Voluntary Services website: https://www.uhb.nhs.uk/volunteers.htm

We are keen to promote new and effective methods of care in partnership with colleagues in community health and social services.

Do you work alongside older people in Birmingham and Solihull and have an idea which will improve their health and wellbeing if we work together?
Please contact Communications@uhb.nhs.uk