The HSE/Caredoc Carlow-Kilkenny Community Intervention Team was officially launched last Friday by Phil Hogan Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government
The Community Intervention Team (CIT ) is a dynamic initiative that has been welcomed by GPs, the HSE and patients in counties Carlow and Kilkenny. The CIT provides a nursing service within the community, on a seven days a week basis and supports early hospital discharge and hospital avoidance.
Supported by the HSE, Caredoc is the out-of-hours family doctors service in the south-east for provision of a high quality, easily accessible family doctor services for urgent medical problems out of normal surgery hours.
This innovative model has an operational base in the Caredoc Centre, Waterford Road, Kilkenny and the Carlow Primary Care Centre, Shamrock Plaza. The Caredoc CIT model in Carlow/Kilkenny is the first of its kind in the country as it is managed by the Caredoc out of hours GP Co-operative.
Speaking at the launch Phil Hogan said, “I’m pleased to see this service in action and I’m delighted to officially launch it here in Kilkenny. What we see here is evidence of a most humane and considerate form of health care, prioritising the treatment of people in their own home. The service has been shown to be reactive to patient’s needs and integrates seamlessly between the community based health care providers and the hospital multidisciplinary team. The service provides high quality, nursing care in the community, for a period of 72 hours and allows suitable patients to get home earlier from hospital and also provides an alternative option of patient care to GPs within the Carlow and Kilkenny areas. It is a valued local resource.”
The HSE’s area manager Anna-Marie Lanigan, speaking at the launch, said that to date over 800 patient interventions have been carried out by the CIT nursing team – including early discharge support, completion of Intravenous (IV ) therapy, PEG tube reinsertions, supra pubic and urethral catheter reinsertions, to name but a few. She also paid tribute to Caredoc, with whom she and her colleagues have been working closely since its establishment in 1999 as the first out of hours GP co-operative in the country.