VIP Red Bag project
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The VIP Red Bag launched in Wakefield in 2021 and is now available in both the Wakefield and Bradford areas. The VIP Red Bag holds all your important health and support information.
The VIP Red Bag is to take with you to any medical appointments or hospital admissions. It holds all your important information so that healthcare staff know how best to treat and support you.
Do you live in Wakefield? The VIP Red Bag is available free to any autistic person, or any person with a learning disability living in the Wakefield area aged 14 years old or over.
Do you live in Bradford? Bradford have also launched the scheme and we have received funding for 200 bags. These are available to any person with a learning disability living in the Bradford area aged 18 years old or over.
How the project began
The project was launched in Wakefield in January 2021, with support from the NHS and Pindefields hospital. The aim of the bag is to highlight to hospital staff that the person has additional needs and may need some reasonable adjustments during their appointment or hospital admission. The VIP logo on the bag is used on the Mid Yorkshire Trust hospital passports and stands for Vulnerable In Patient.
Funding was secured through a number of sources, including Mencap Treat Me Well campaign, Morrisons community fund and Wakefield CCG/NHS England. This funding has allowed us to give everyone in Wakefield who is on the Learning Disability Register, a bag for free. It has also covered the costs of the project management. This has enabled there to be a dedicated person overseeing the scheme and its roll out rather than it being managed alongside people’s day jobs.
What's been achieved
The project has been moving from strength to strength and so far, over 1200 bags have been distributed. This has been achieved through support from the complex needs team, care coordinators during annual health checks, other service providers and through various events.
The care coordinators in Wakefield have been piloting One-Stop-Shops which aim to bring lots of health sessions and initiatives to one place, rather than people having to go to various locations. It has also allowed people to discover new projects and information that they may not have known was available. During these One-Stop-Shops, we have been able to give out many bags, as well as raise awareness of hospital passports and annual health checks. Some people have even been able to have their annual health checks completed on the day or be supported to fill in their hospital passports. We are also looking to run some support sessions dedicated to completing hospital passports.
There has been a lot of interest in the VIP Red Bag Project from other areas across the country. We have given presentations to Integrated care boards (ICBs), Sheffield Cross Transitions, and The British Institute of Learning Disabilities. We have also been in conversations with the Academic Health Science Network who are keen to roll this out further. We have also spoken at The National Learning Disability Nurse Symposium about VIP Red Bags.
We would like to roll VIP Red Bags out locally and nationwide, not only to share the benefits of the scheme and the work we have been doing on annual health checks and hospital passports but for continuity of care across neighbouring hospitals. For example, some of the people we support in Wakefield may visit Sheffield hospitals for their epilepsy appointments or go for cancer screening at Leeds hospitals. Having the scheme in hospitals across the country would allow people to receive the same high levels of care, and not have to rely on a ‘postcode lottery’.
We have seen lots of positive changes in the Wakefield area from the work we have been doing alongside the hard work of the strategic health facilitator, complex needs team and local PCNs. This has ensured that last year, 82% of people with a learning disability received an annual health check and 100% of GP surgeries are now signed up to deliver these.
It was found that many family carers or people living at home were not always aware of the hospital passports. Some people have also assumed that they, or the person they support, has automatically been enrolled onto the Learning Disability Register but this has not always been the case. We have encouraged people to contact their GP to double check this. We have also created a short video to show people how easy this is.
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