TOAST Market Place Event

Aim of the Event

The event was designed to inform Health and Social Care Professionals of the services that are available to support carers in North Lincolnshire and the Yorkshire Region

Objectives

To enable delegates to:

1. Recognise the benefits from identifying carers early
2. Understand the benefits of respecting carers as expert partners
3. Identify the potential financial benefits to their organisations that could be achieved by supporting carers
4. Identify ways in which their organisations could improve support to carers

70 professionals were invited to attend.  We targeted particularly GP practices, health visitors and hospital staff on the Coronary Care Unit and the Stroke Unit.  The specific intention was to encourage the people who could play a key part in early identification, signposting or referral of carers to support organisations.  Receivers of the Innovation fund in Yorkshire and the Humber were invited to display their projects and share good practice.

Of those invited 40 people attended representing both statutory and voluntary health and social care organisations.

We were fortunate to secure a GP to provide her perspective on the benefits to her GP practice from early identification and support of carers.

The Chair of the North Lincolnshire and Goole Hospitals Trust was unable to attend due to a family bereavement the weekend before the event.

The feedback was extremely positive and the resulting information from the discussion groups will be presented on the Carers Support website in due course and will be shared with the delegates requesting feedback.

Copies of the signing in sheets and the feedback sheets are attached.