Policy Innovation Research Unit (PIRU) , London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, April 2016
- The Integrated Care and Support Pioneer programme was initiated nationally to improve the quality, effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of care for people whose needs are met best when the different parts of NHS and local authority services (especially adult social care) work in an integrated way.
- Fourteen Pioneers were announced in November 2013 taking forward a range of different initiatives including single point of access, virtual ward, integrated teams, primary prevention and self management.
- The vision for the future of health and social care of the Pioneers was of a ‘transformed’, ‘whole system’ of integrated care involving all the local bodies and all professional groups in which holistic services would be organised around the needs of the individual and her/his carers.
- All Pioneers saw better integrated care as a crucial means of improving care quality and patient experience in a context where need and demand were increasing more than the resources available. Such a goal was thought to be achievable by reducing acute hospital admissions through better managing patients with multiple conditions in non-acute settings and by maintaining people’s independence and wellbeing as long as possible.
- The report describes national and local barriers to integrated working, facilitators and learning from the first 18 months of the programme.
