Developing place-based partnerships in Lancashire and South Cumbria

Review of place-based partnerships

‌The board of NHS Lancashire and South Cumbria made a decision to align the place-based partnerships to the four local authority boundaries to promote and enable deeper integration and collaboration with health and social care in order to improve population health, hospital flow and discharges into the community, based on a paper presented at the board meeting on 27 July.

The role of place-based partnerships is integral to the future of the Lancashire and South Cumbria system achieving a collaborative approach to health inequalities and the wider determinants of health for our communities throughout the life course.

Please find below a link to a full stakeholder briefing regarding the review and the decision made, alongside a set of frequently asked questions, which aims to give colleagues and stakeholders answers to queries they may have.

Place-based partnerships in Lancashire and South Cumbria: a narrative document

What do we mean by a ‘Place-Based Partnership’?

A place-based partnership is a collaboration of planners and providers across health, local authority and the wider community, who take collective responsibility for improving the health and wellbeing of residents within a place. Most people’s day to day care and support needs will be met within a place and delivered in neighbourhoods.

Place-based partnerships were previously known as Integrated Care Partnerships (ICPs) in Lancashire and South Cumbria.

Within the Lancashire and South Cumbria Health and Care Partnership, there have previously been five place-based partnerships:

• Central Lancashire
• Fylde Coast
• Morecambe Bay
• Pennine Lancashire
• West Lancashire

In July 2022, we made a decision to align our place-based partnerships to local authority boundaries. Work to implement this change is underway and that will mean changes to the websites for places above. One of the first stages of this change is to appoint directors of health and care integration to lead each place-based partnership. 

Our partnerships will create a feeling of belonging to a place, where all partners are valued and respected, and mutual support is offered to all partners. This will be particularly significant in challenging times. It is important to acknowledge that residents are co-partners in the continued evolution of place-based partnerships, and that social movements in communities can increase people’s ownership of their own health and wellbeing and mobilise communities to support each other.

The common purpose of a place-based partnership is to enable collaboration that will address specific place-based challenges and deliver within each place the component parts of the Integrated Care System (ICS) strategy.

The document entitled “Integrating care: Next steps to building strong and effective integrated care systems across England”, published by NHSEI in November 2020 states that:

“Every area is different, but common characteristics of the most successful are the full involvement of all partners who contribute to the place’s health and care; an important role for local councils (often through joint appointments or shared budgets); a leading role for clinical primary care leaders through primary care networks; and a clear, strategic relationship with health and wellbeing boards.”

The core aims of a place-based partnership are to: 

• Improve the health and wellbeing of the population and reduce inequalities.
• Provide consistent, high quality services that remove unwarranted variation in outcomes.
• Consistently achieve national standards / targets across the sectors within the partnership.
• Maximise the use of a place-based financial allocation and resources.

Next steps

We will continue to keep colleagues, partners and members of the public informed about any developments as early as possible.

If you have any questions, please contact healthier.lsc@nhs.net

Find out more about how we are developing integrated care in Lancashire and South Cumbria.