Moving towards an integrated care system

This blog post aims to help staff and members of the public better understand what changes will be taking place and what they will mean for staff and services across the Lancashire and South Cumbria.

Lancashire and South Cumbria has a clinical leader in Dr Amanda Doyle, a GP from Blackpool with significant national and local leadership experience. As Chief Officer for the partnership of organisations, Amanda is working with the support of senior clinicians and managers from every part of Lancashire and South Cumbria:

“In February 2018, the NHS planning guidance stated that over time integrated care systems will replace Sustainability and Transformation Partnerships in delivering the NHS Five Year Forward View and key national priorities. The guidance states that this will happen as systems demonstrate their ability to take collective responsibility for financial and operational performance and health outcomes.

Lancashire and South Cumbria intends to become a shadow integrated care system (ICS) during 2018/19 and this partnership is known as Healthier Lancashire and South Cumbria.

An integrated care system is a collaboration in which NHS, Local Authority, voluntary and other public sector partners will need to demonstrate how we will work effectively with the communities we serve. This will bring together commissioners, providers and regulators to work in more cohesive ways.

Healthier Lancashire and South Cumbria’s progress towards achieving this has been recognised and we have been chosen by NHS England as one of the first areas of the country to work towards becoming an integrated care system.

In Lancashire and South Cumbria we have five local areas, previously known as Local Delivery Partnerships, that are now working as integrated care partnerships. These are Central Lancashire, West Lancashire, Pennine Lancashire, Fylde Coast and Morecambe Bay. These areas have been successful in bringing organisations and groups together to provide health and care services locally.

We have worked with leaders and staff from across Lancashire and South Cumbria to develop a strategic framework which clarifies and coordinates the decisions and activities across the whole system to ensure the most effective and efficient use of resources. This way of working aims to be clear about what should be undertaken once across the system, five times in integrated care partnerships or uniquely at neighbourhood level.

Moving into 2018/19, we have refreshed our programme structure and our existing workstreams to focus on 12 portfolio areas that will now be adopted to mobilise and lead our priority areas of work which look at the shared challenges across our system.

As we move towards more integrated ways of working, it is important we remain focused on delivering better health outcomes for the 1.7 million people who live in Lancashire and South Cumbria, improving experiences for patients and work towards the financial sustainability of local services.”