Today NHS England has announced the 29 partnerships that will put a key part of the Five Year Forward View into action by developing new local models of care, designed to be more person-centred, efficient and joined-up than ever before.
The Five Year Forward View for the NHS, published last autumn, called for services across the country to work more closely together, including between general practices and hospitals, health and social care, and physical and mental health, so that care is truly person-centred.
The first wave of the partnerships – called ‘vanguard geographies’ – have been chosen from 269 applications to redesign care in their areas and create ways to integrate services and break down structural boundaries. Eventually people could see benefits in these, such as fewer trips to hospital with more services available in the community, single points of contact, and access to blood tests, dialysis and chemotherapy closer to home.
As the regulator of health and adult social care services across England, we welcome this development. Our new inspection regime is based on what matters most to people who use services and so we will continue to use our findings to identify what works well and what does not so that people get safe, high-quality and compassionate care.
Welcoming the announcement, David Behan, Chief Executive of the Care Quality Commission said:
"Health and adult social care should be designed around a person’s individual needs and not focused on organisational structures, as these do not represent the reality of experience. As the regulator for health and adult social care, we support this vision for improvement.
"I would like to offer my congratulations to the vanguard sites that have been selected to develop ways to provide more person-centred and joined-up care than ever before.
"By end of 2015, we will have inspected the majority of health and adult social care services in some areas. This will put us in a unique position in understanding not only how care is being delivered in different locations, but also in being able to use that information to create a picture of how well the health and social care system is working as a whole for people in different parts of the country.
"This information will be key to supporting the vanguard sites as they develop their models to assure high-quality care and encourage collaboration.”
For further information about the ‘vanguard geographies’ and the Five Year Forward View for the NHS, visit NHS England’s website.
Health and adult social care should be designed around a person's individual needs and not focused on organisational structures, as these do not represent the reality of experience. As the regulator for health and adult social care, we support this vision for improvement.
David Behan, Chief Executive, Care Quality Commission