Health and Care Integration
Across Leicestershire, partners are working together to join up care, particularly for frail older people, those with long term conditions and other vulnerable groups, including carers.
Working together, Leicestershire’s long term vision is to create a strong, sustainable, person-centred and integrated health and care system, which improves outcomes for our citizens.
The County Council strongly supports the integration of health and care services whenever possible and to the benefit of those receiving care in any setting. The Council continues to commit significant resources to that end. However, in the case of a move to an ‘Integrated Care System’ in Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland, as required by NHS England, the County Council is awaiting clarification from the NHS as to what this will mean in practice to determine the level of support required.
Better Care Fund
The government has set up the ‘Better Care Fund’ (BCF) – a budget to improve the way health and social care services work together.
The Leicestershire BCF plan, developed by the county’s Health and Wellbeing Board, has a total pooled budget of £52.4 million provided by the council and NHS bodies. This will be spent on developing plans for integrating health and social care services, to improve the quality and convenience of services for patients locally.
The BCF plan is comprised of the following key areas in support of health and care integration:
- Unified Prevention Offer – that is co-designed across the full range of partners, wraps around people, communities and locality teams, and is targeted to maintaining wellbeing and independence.
- Home First – providing an enhanced community care service on a 24/7 basis which supports effective hospital discharge, prevents readmission to hospital, and provides maximum reablement.
- Integrated Housing Support – providing a range of previously fragmented housing support services in one integrated offer targeted to supporting hospital discharge and maintaining health, wellbeing and independence at home.
- Integrated Domiciliary Care – a new Home Care for Leicestershire service is currently being designed and is due to be implemented in late 2021.
- Integrated Neighborhood Team – a focus on specific cohorts of people where the opportunity to intervene via improved integrated case management to help with maximum impact on outcomes, both for the individual and the health and care system as a whole.
- Integrated Urgent Care – offering clear alternatives to attendance at the A&E department 24/7, with improved clinical triage and navigation to ensure consistent use of alternatives and divert people away from acute care where applicable.
- Data Integration – both at population level, to track the performance and utilisation of the health and care system, and at individual care level, so that the delivery of care is supported by an integrated summary care record, accessible by multiple professionals.
- Integrated Commissioning – building the approach and joint infrastructure between the Local Authority and Clinical Commissioning Group partners in priority areas such as stabilising and further market development for domiciliary care.
- Transforming Care Programme – ensuring the right support is in place for people with learning disabilities, autism or those who have behaviours that challenge, so they can be discharged from hospital care at the right time. To support people who are risk of being admitted, and to provide appropriate accommodation in the community to maximise their independence.
By integrating services we will improve efficiencies and reduce duplication between agencies caring for people. It will also help to reduce the growing pressures on hospitals and help keep people healthier in their own homes, whilst providing families with greater confidence in how their loved ones are looked after.
Better Care Together
Better Care Together is a partnership between NHS organisations and councils in Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland that was set up to transform local health and social care systems. Working closely with public and patient representatives, the partners have focused on developing plans to improve services and the experience of patients and carers.
In November 2016 a new Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland draft sustainability and transformation plan was published. This plan is a progression of Better Care Together’s work to date, and it concentrates on the key priorities for change that have been identified in the area. The sustainability and transformation plan(STP) sets out how services can evolve for the long term in line with the NHS’s Five Year Forward View for better health, better patient care, and improved NHS efficiency. It is one of 44 sustainability and transformation plans nationally. Partners continue to engage with people and organisations across the Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland region to develop this work.
There is more information about STPs on the NHS website.
