THE collaborative care team at Skipton Hospital took delivery of new red kit bags, thanks to the Friends of Airedale charity.

The bags contain vital equipment staff need when doing their daily visits – thermometers, stethoscopes, needles, a glucometer, a rescue mask for CRP and sample bottles and dressings.

The extra bags mean that each member of staff on every single shift has access to their own bag, with all the equipment they need.

The collaborative care team are based at Skipton Hospital and have 20 members of staff including nurses, health care support workers, physiotherapists and occupational therapists.

The aim of the team is to prevent hospital admission wherever possible and safe to do so and help patients get home from hospital more quickly and safely with support they might need at home.

The team can visit people up to four times a day in their home including night visits to help avoid a crisis, and care is planned to meet individual needs.

Neil Sugden, collaborative care team leader at Airedale NHS Foundation Trust, said: “We are very grateful to the Friends for this donation. These new bags give the team more freedom to respond quickly to the needs of the people we look after. Because we cover a massive geographical area if everyone has a bag it means we can be more responsive as a service.”

“We receive 130 referrals to the Skipton team every month and that means around 1,000 to 1,500 follow up contacts with patients. The bag has to be a portable treatment room for all those patients – and have everything to hand they would have in a hospital treatment room.”