The LGA has long supported joining up services across place in order to meet the needs of a society with increasingly chronic and complex health and care needs. Integrated care has developed significantly since the implementation of the Better Care Fund in 2013 which required the NHS and local government to create a local single pooled budget.
In November 2018 the LGA, with partners Association of Directors of Adult Social Services, the Association of Directors of Public Health, NHS Confederation, NHS Clinical Commissioners and NHS Providers, published a shared vision for integration.
Shifting the Centre of Gravity: making place-based, person-centred health and care a reality is the basis for our shared Six principles to achieve integrated care, which informs all our joint work across organisational boundaries to plan and deliver person-centred care and support.
In addition, our practice resource, Achieving Integrated Care, produced jointly with the Social Care Institute for Excellence draws on evidence about what works from international research and emerging best practice in Integration. Following engagement with our own stakeholders and partners we have set out 15 actions that, if implemented, will enable local partners to focus on three key elements:
- the delivery of person-centred coordinated care – i.e. the core objective of integrated care
- the building of local “place-based” care and support systems
- system leadership for integration
For more information about tools to support with Integration, go to the Better Care Fund page.
Health and care systems are now gearing up for further change, with the introduction of the Health and Care Act. For more information on these developments, see our System Leadership and ICS Development Resources section.
Working with national and sector partners, we provide a wide range of support tools and activities to support every step of the journey towards a fully integrated health and care system aiming for “Better Places, Better Partnerships” and “Better Care, Better Communities”.
System transformation and integration support offer
The System Transformation and Integration team can help you implement your integration ambitions by developing proactive, person-centred care and support, and shifting capacity into the community to improve citizens’ health and wellbeing, and better manage demand.
Our tools can support your system in a variety of contexts, be that over different footprints – from neighbourhoods to integrated care systems as well as health and wellbeing boards – or around different priorities or issues, such as underperformance, rising needs or financial challenges.
The offers described in this section are all free to access. They are provided by the Care and Health Improvement Programme, which is funded by the Department of Health and Social Care. We also provide support funded by the Better Care Support Programme.
Our offer is delivered by experienced system leaders from health and local government, using sector-led improvement principles, and covers two broad categories:
- Peer reviews, evaluation and progress checks: support to help local systems assess strengths, challenges and progress in addressing service or performance issues as well as local integration ambitions
- Making integration happen: a wide range of tools to support planning and implementation including workshops and bespoke on-site support to identify where you are now and generate ideas to accelerate the scale and pace of progress, in addition to good practice and signposting materials
For further information or to discuss what offer might be right for your system, please contact your regional care and health improvement adviser or email integration@local.gov.uk
The web pages below outline the key areas of focus for the System Transformation and Integration team and include a wide range of information, resources and examples of support offers to aid local systems in developing integrated care and health arrangements, from addressing operational issues such as hospital discharge pathways or admission avoidance, to ICS leadership and the role of Health and Wellbeing Boards.