Impact of Bridges

What impact does Bridges have on everyday practice? We wanted to understand some of the tangible changes and the impact of Bridges on everyday practice in healthcare. We spoke with six senior NHS clinical leaders who had all commissioned Bridges within the last 5 years. They reflected on their experience of implementing Bridges within their teams, some having received their initial training in Bridges over 10 years ago and others having trained within the last 18 months. Integration experiences varied, but all narratives contained common activities and areas of impact

View our latest impact statement to understand more.

"Most of us came into the job to help people, but feel we are being asked to do something quite different. Bridges allows us to establish the personal human contact that makes our jobs worthwhile." Senior Nurse- Stroke service

Health Education England - People 1st

The 'People 1st project' funded by Health Education England shows our impact across the East of England region, and involved 650 staff from 24 trusts.

An independent evaluation by University of East Anglia showed that Bridges positively impacted on:

1) staff confidence to support self-management

2) the benefits of changing practice to them personally, within their team, and on patients/families.

 

Six case studies from each STP have also been published - view them here

Building Bridges: Self-management and co-production in the rehabilitation of people with complex disabilities

Building Bridges: Self-management and co-production in the rehabilitation of people with complex disabilities

Since 2013 the Bridges Self-Management approach developed by Professor Fiona Jones has been used to support patients living with stroke, major trauma, brain injury and other complex health conditions in the UK and globally

The practical implementation of this research has been operationalised through a social enterprise, Bridges Self-Management Limited (BSML). BSML has found that the research equips practitioners to support self-management in people living with long-term conditions, can reduce unnecessary use of health care services, and by doing so improves the confidence and quality of life of clients and client's families.

Practitioners' behaviour has changed as a result of working in a 'Bridges way' and 92% state that Bridges has helped them build better relationships with patients and their families and has made them more able to support patients to achieve meaningful outcomes. Bridges has also impacted service delivery, for example, paediatric service waiting times have decreased from three months to just one.

The research has demonstrated the feasibility of integrating Bridges into the practice of acute and community healthcare teams. Furthermore, research carried out in Otago and Flinders Universities support cultural applicability in New Zealand and Australia.

What Building Bridges has achieved so far

BSML has delivered consultancy and training in self-management support to over 380 different health and social care teams, reaching over 4,000 individual practitioners and thousands of people living with stroke, brain injury and other long-term conditions

Since 2014, BSML has developed and distributed over 7000 booklets and digital tools (app and website) for people (and their families) with stroke and other complex health conditions. More than 20,000 were provided through training packages commissioned by healthcare teams. By reading about how others cope, patients and their families can learn more about how they can improve or at least manage their condition.

At the start of the pandemic in March 2020, BSML provided free webinars on various topics accessed by over 3,200 healthcare practitioners worldwide. Surveys showed that the webinars offered a safe place to reflect on self-management, resilience, and person-centred practice at a time of reactive and challenging healthcare.

Since 2014, BSML moved from workshop delivery to include larger quality improvement projects. As a result of these projects multiple healthcare teams and pathways of care have adopted new efficient working processes and systems after integrating Bridges into their delivery.

Building Bridges: plans for the future

Going forward, a new research project led by Professor Fiona Jones will look at co-designing and evaluating a personalised support programme for people with long Covid using the Building Bridges training methodology.

  • Inspiring People to Live Well and Work Differently.

    As a team we share the same ethos and philosophy that drives our passion to create the best experience and environment for patients to live well. Bridges provide opportunities for both patients and professionals to work collaboratively to enhance self-management skills, knowledge and confidence.
    You can reach us by email admin@bridgesselfmanagement.org.uk