Integrated care systems need to be different - but how exactly?

ICSs are intended to be a fundamental departure from previous NHS structures with a different type of leadership based on partnership, in which local partner organisations hold collective responsibility for resource use and outcomes. However, as ICSs take on statutory responsibilities for the first time later this year (assuming the Heath and Care Bill gains parliamentary approval) there is a risk of recreating established ways of working within the new structures. To live up to their promise, what are the things that should be ‘different’ about ICSs?

First, the concept of equal partnership between the NHS, local government, voluntary sector ...

Integrated care systems are an opportunity to reset the relationship between health services and the public

‘The more we concentrate on merely reworking our existing institutions, the more we fail to see or understand the nature of the new challenges that surround us.’
Hilary Cottam, Radical help

Can hospital services work in primary care settings?

In this post, the author analyzes how recent changes in primary care in the National Health Services could face the purpose of moving some services from hospital to primary care settings.

The author bases her discussion on a report published by RAND corporation (“Outpatient Services and Primary Care”) that identifies five main areas to be considered when moving services from hospital to primary care:

1. Transfer: The substitution of services delivered by specialists for services delivered by primary care clinicians.
2. Relocation: Shifting the venue of specialist care from hospitals to primary care settings.
3. Liaison: Joint working between specialists and primary care ...

Using patient feedback to drive improvement

Increasing amount of information is being collected from patients after they are discharged in a hospital; this information can be used mainly in three ways: (I) to analyse how care is being performed, (II) to publish data in order to share information with general public and to enhance government’s accountability, and (III) to implement reforms in hospital activities and way of working.

In this post, the author defends the idea that not enough information is being used to make patient experience have actual influence at changing how health care organization work at a local level. Organizational leadership and patient-centered ...

Medicines optimisation: the safe and effective use of medicines to enable the best possible outcomes

This guideline offers best practice advice on the care of all people who are using medicines and also those who are receiving suboptimal benefit from medicines, from the point of view of NICE based of the best available evidence.

Medicines prevent, treat or manage many illnesses or conditions and are the most common intervention in healthcare. However, it has been estimated that between 30% and 50% of medicines prescribed for long?term conditions are not taken as intended (World Health Organization 2003). This issue is worsened by the growing number of people with long term conditions (long?term condition is ...

Age UK’s Personalised Integrated Care Programme: where are we now?

Age UK launched its personalised integrated care programme in 2012 in Cornwall. In this post, published in its blog, some data about its evaluation are shown and discussed.

The main objectives of this programme are to improve health and wellbeing of older people by tailoring services to meet their needs, improve the experience and quality of care received, and to reduce unplanned hospital admissions amongst older people with multiple long-term conditions.

The evaluation showed a 31% reduction in all hospital admissions, a 26% reduction in emergency ones, and a 20% improvement in older people’s health and wellbeing. In addition ...

Integrated care: the importance of ICT in data sharing

In this post by Health IT Central it is analyzed how different experiences regarding people centered and integrated health systems have been developed across the world. Some studies have been able to identify what are the key elements to succeed when performing integrated health care; these factors are rethinking clinical models, achieving a cultural change, enforcing collaborative multidisciplinary working and improving the way patient information is shared. In this post, the author focuses on how important patient information sharing is to make integrated services experiences succeed, being a core factor in continuity of care and becoming a barrier when data ...