'Promising' homeless clinic earns national award

Prof Dominick Shaw has said he wants to roll out the initiative across the East Midlands

A programme to help treat homeless people in Nottingham with lung problems has won a national award.

The respiratory clinic at the Nottingham Recovery Network Wellbeing Hub sees staff from Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust (NUH) volunteer once a month to diagnose and help patients.

It is the first service of its kind in the UK, and was launched in August 2024 with homeless charity Framework, CityCare and Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust.

It has earned the urgent and emergency care safety initiative of the year at the Health Service Journal's patient safety awards.

As part of the project, Framework's outreach workers identify potential patients, who would normally struggle to access help, for treatment.

With mortality rates high for rough sleepers and lung diseases cited as a key cause, the scheme aims to avoid preventable deaths.

"Despite lacking formal funding, the service has already treated more than 70 patients and is showing promising results in reducing hospital admissions," the award citation said.

Prof Dominick Shaw, who leads the initiative, said it was "amazing" to win the award and thanked colleagues for their hard work in establishing the programme, adding there are plans to replicate it elsewhere.

"What I'd like to do is to expand the project across the East Midlands," he said.

"The reason there's potential for that is the trusts in the [region] all use the same electronic patient healthcare record, so it would be quite simple to take the virtual concept that we have.

"Doing it from a point of view where you provide hospital-level care in a homeless hub, I'm not sure it's done anywhere else, and that has meant that the care has been joined up from start to finish, across primary, secondary and social care for these patients.

"That has been the real win."