Since winning a prestigious HSJ Award last year, Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust’s amazing ACE (Ambulatory Care Experience) service has gone from strength-to-strength.
Clinicians from around the country, including most recently London’s Evelina Children’s Hospital, have visited Bradford to find out how we are caring for sick children at home with our families, primary care and commissioners.
And the latest news from the ACE camp is hitting all the right notes. In another exciting turn, the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM) are set to perform a piece which aims to describe the service using flutes, oboes and clarinets!
Health data research group Connected Health Cities (CHC) and composers from PRiSM (the RNCM’s Centre for Practice and Research in Science and Music) have come together to transform five key health projects into contemporary musical pieces.
PRiSM composers have conducted research across the north of England, using health data to transform each project into music, from making sure that stroke patients are identified and treated as quickly as possible, to helping poorly children stay out of hospital and receive care at home (one of several pathways now being offered by the ACE service).
Each composition will be premiered at Manchester Museum on September 19, with Dr Mat Mathai (clinical lead for Children’s Ambulatory Care and ACE), Kuldeep Sohal (CHC Project Manager at the Bradford Institute of Health Research) and Dr Reena Basu (Health Education England leadership fellow) set to attend and help present composer Isabel Benito-Gutierrez’s piece on ACE.
Isabel said: “My piece wants to evoke the contrast between the pre-existing and complicated process families have to go through when a child shows some symptoms of illness. That’s why the first half of the piece has this chaotic element that Dr Mathai metaphorically described to me as a ‘pinball’.
“The second half of the composition reflects what the ACE project wants to achieve – clinical improvements for the wellbeing of families and children and young people. The music is more relaxed and coordinated producing a sense of relief – as the ACE service does.
Different experience
“I really enjoyed discovering this new world and visiting Bradford Royal Infirmary. It was a very different experience from the common ones of a musician.”
Dr Mathai said: “Isobel, the composer, came to see me a couple of months ago and I took her on a typical child’s journey from Paediatric A&E up to the Children’s Clinical Decision Area on ward 30
“I was particularly struck by the expressions on Isabel’s face as we walked through the hospital. It was clearly an alien environment for her. I was surprised by her reaction but suddenly realised that for me this alien environment was as familiar as home!
“It made me realise something really quite obvious – that for our young people and their families hospitals are generally unfamiliar and scary places. So if we can look after them at home in familiar surroundings then that’s what we should be doing!
“We’re very much looking forward to seeing Isabel’s piece being performed live and in such a magnificent venue!”
Launched at Bradford Royal Infirmary in December 2017, the ACE project aims to bring care to poorly young patients and prevent unnecessary referrals to our hospitals.
ACE clinical pathways allow some of our young patients aged up to 16 with wheeze, asthma croup, and gastroenteritis to be treated at home by our talented community nurse team under the expert eye of our paediatricians.
The ACE service will also soon be looking after babies with a viral chest infection called bronchiolitis who are getting better but still require oxygen, as well as infants who require special light treatment for jaundice (phototherapy) in their own home.
Free tickets for CHC’s and PriSM’s concert at Manchester Museum from 6-9pm on September 19 are still available.
CHC is a project led by the Northern Health Science Alliance and funded by the Department of Health.