HELP Care Home Partners are provided with support to set up and implement ECHO, a community of learning linking several care homes in each borough.

Using a hub-and-spoke model, care home staff are facilitated to present real cases for discussion and learning.

The ECHO team works closely with clinical nurse specialists and other members of the wider multidisciplinary team. The curricula for educational sessions are decided by care homes.

View upcoming ECHO sessions

Downloads

• Introduction to ECHO at St Christopher’s (PDF)
• ECHO information flyer (PDF)

What is ECHO?

 Project ECHO is a ‘not for profit’ initiative which aims to bring together specialist teams and primary health care providers, such as care homes, to enable learning and support. The goal is to improve best practice and empower participants to make informed decisions when problem solving in their place of work. 

The heart of the Project ECHO model is its ‘hub’ (in this case St Christopher’s) and ‘spoke’ (care homes, GP’s, district nurses) knowledge sharing networks, using video conferencing to form communities of practice, supported by a trained facilitator and administrative/IT support from St Christopher’s. 

What are the benefits of participation? 

Allows staff to participate in training without leaving the care home, reducing lost working hours, travel time and travel costs 

• Enables staff to build confidence whilst acquiring new skills and competencies 
• Care homes can network and learn from one another – share ‘best practice’ and become a ‘community of practice’ 
• Opportunity to present and discuss challenging case studies and receive feedback from a multidisciplinary team of specialists and peers 
• Open access to ECHO training resources and recorded sessions 
• Tailored to the learning requirements of your specific ‘community of practice’ 
• Access to specialist knowledge 

What does a typical ECHO session look like?

A typical ECHO session may look like this: 

• Introduction & reflection
• 20 min PowerPoint presentation from the hub on the agreed topic followed by discussion 
• 1-2 case presentations from spokes followed by discussion 
• Summary