The Frome Model

The Frome Model

\”Compassionate Communities project reduces population emergency admissions\”

At time when emergency admissions in Somerset rose by 30%, those in Frome reduced by 15%. This is the first intervention that has successfully reduced emergency admissions to hospital across a population and offers the possibility of averting the current crisis in the NHS of increasing admissions to hospital and rising NHS costs. Emergency admissions account for nearly 20% of the £110 billion healthcare budget.

 The academic paper describing what happened in Frome was published in the British Journal of General Practice in 2018 https://bjgp.org/content/68/676/e803/tab-article-info

Frome Medical Practice, serving the 28,000 population in Frome and the surrounding area, took the innovative approach of combining a compassionate community programme of community development with routine medical care. 

The success of the programme makes routine use of the most effective intervention for improving health and longevity, which is social relationships. Social connectedness has a bigger impact on health than giving up smoking, reducing excessive drinking, reducing obesity and any other preventative interventions. Until now, it has not been known how to use this in routine clinical practice. Through paying attention to people’s community networks, the medical practice and Health Connections Mendip, the community development service, reconnect people to both their own supportive network and the extensive community activity that already exists. 

Compassionate communities do not take the place of social care. Rather, it has 3 components. 

1. Through making the most of the supportive networks of family, friends and neighbours, people build care and connectedness, love and laughter, sharing companionship and values. Some of this is task related to caring and some is increasing a sense of belonging in communities.
2. Building networks of support for the routine matters of life, shopping, cooking, cleaning, looking after the garden and pets, providing lifts.
3. Linking to community activity, such as choir, walking groups, men’s sheds, talking cafes and other interest groups where people can make friendships and share life’s events.

Together, compassionate communities help to reduce isolation and loneliness and bring a sense of belonging into what is sometimes a disconnected society. 

Dr Julian Abel, Director of Compassionate Communities UK says:

“Medicine until now has not seen the social relationships domain as part of clinical care. However, it is the most effective intervention we have in improving health and well being across populations. The project in Frome has found a way of making compassionate communities and embedded part of care. The results of doing so are startling.”

Dr Helen Kingston, Senior Partner at Frome Medical Practice and initiator of the Frome Model, says:

“Our project has shown clearly that we improve patient outcomes, improve working lives of the clinical teams and dramatically reducing emergency admissions to hospital. Having the community resources at hand means we can meet the needs of our patients in a way that is most meaningful to them, rather than struggling to find answers to social problems with medications.”

Health Connections Mendip work with you to build healthy, supportive communities.

This film tells you everything you need to know – including how we identify gaps in service provision, build social capital, communicate with our community and exactly what the difference is between a Community Connector and a Health Connector!

Photo shows Kerrie Noonan (3rd left to right) and Holly Rankin – Smith (first left to right) from Groundswell, Australia after they were trained by Julie Carey – Downes as the first international Community Connectors in Frome, along with Jenny Hartnoll, lead for Health Connections Mendip