Coventry and Warwickshire STP will become an integrated care system (ICS), and partners have agreed the geography of four integrated care partnerships as the basis for delivering place-based services and support, with a model of integrated local teams combining to deliver primary care, social care, community healthcare and wellbeing support in local hubs.
Coventry and Warwickshire Sustainability and Transformation Partnership (STP) is coterminous with Coventry City Council and Warwickshire County Council. Since December 2017, Coventry and Warwickshire health and wellbeing boards (HWBs) have been meeting as the Coventry and Warwickshire Place Forum to set the vision and principles for how the health, care and wellbeing system will work together.
The forum’s membership includes leaders from all sectors in health, care and wellbeing, representatives of blue-light services, local universities, NHS England and the STP.
The Place Forum has developed an ‘alliance concordat’ which describes how partners will collaborate in a place-based approach – prioritising prevention, strengthening communities and sharing responsibility. The STP has adopted the concordat as a key document for shaping place and system. The forum is developing an outcomes framework dashboard to monitor progress on system-wide key performance indicators and proxy indicators.
Partners have developed a single strategic place plan with the intention of embedding prevention as the ‘first chapter’ in all STP programmes and system-wide developments. Both joint strategic needs assessments are being refreshed and aligned to address the social determinants of health and the integration agenda – developing asset-based profiles of geographic areas with a population of between 30,000 and 50,000.
“Coventry and Warwickshire Place Forum enables us to focus on tackling the broad determinants of health and health inequalities across the whole system. One of the challenges in the NHS and local government working together is that sometimes they speak different languages and misunderstandings can arise. The forum and the concordat help us to communicate better. We have further to go to achieve all our aims for health and social care integration and prevention, and many developments are still to take place. The Place Forum will have an important role in driving and overseeing this work.”
Andrea Green, Chief Officer, Warwickshire North Clinical Commissioning Group and Accountable Officer, Coventry and Rugby Clinical Commissioning Group
The forum has agreed that 2019 will be the ‘Year of Wellbeing’ to showcase the practical benefits of the alliance concordat. Partners have pledged resources and agreed a delivery programme. Aims include to extend the network of healthier lifestyle champions; promote physical activity, particularly in primary schools; partners to join the ‘Thrive West Midlands’ workplace wellbeing programme; and measures to get people talking to reduce loneliness and social isolation.
Coventry and Warwickshire STP will become an ICS, and partners have agreed the geography of four integrated care partnerships as the basis for delivering place-based services and support, with a model of integrated local teams combining to deliver primary care, social care, community healthcare and wellbeing support in local hubs.
Coventry and Warwickshire intend to continue operating separate HWBs to focus on local priorities, but will also consider the future shape of their HWBs in relation to developments in the ICS. Over time, the role of the Place Forum is likely to evolve.
Contacts
Liz Gaulton, Director of Public Health, Coventry City Council [email protected]
Rachel Barnes, Health and Wellbeing Delivery
[email protected]
Debbie Dawson, Policy and Transformation Officer
[email protected]
Find out more on the HWB research and learning page.