Over the last five years health and care organisations
working in the borough of Halton have increasingly come together to improve the
health, care and wellbeing of the population we serve. This has had most
resonance and impact in services for adults in the borough, particularly for
older people who are frail and require additional support. The
collaborative approach that has emerged, which we refer to as One Halton,
has been successful in reducing complexity and fragmentation, making better use
of scarce resources and improving health outcomes and the quality of services
for our population.
Since the publication of the NHS Five Year Forward View in
October 2014 there has been considerable interest in “place-based
systems of care” in which health and care organisations collaborate and share
resources to deliver better outcomes, better care and better value for
money. A recent publication by The King’s Fund strongly argues that this
represents the future direction for health and care in England. There are
many examples throughout the country where place-based systems of care are
emerging on a more formal basis through a variety of governance
frameworks.
The development of place-based systems of care has been
actively encouraged by the New Models of Care Programme established by NHS
England following the NHS Five Year Forward View and is accelerating
through the emerging Sustainability and Transformation Plans (STPs) being
developed in response to the shared planning guidance 2016/17. There is considerable interest in the concept of accountable care, where a
group of health and care organisations take responsibility for providing all
care for a given population for a defined period of time under a contractual
arrangement with a commissioner.
The One Halton programme has begun to deliver what
could be recognised as a place-based approach to health, care and wellbeing for
our borough. We met yesterday with colleagues from our provider trusts,
Halton Borough Council, the voluntary sector, Healthwatch and one ofour GP
Federations to take the next step in our journey together by actively exploring
and committing to establishing a model of accountable care that fits with the
vision, values and ethos of One Halton. We agreed that we needed
to start to shape what this may mean for our borough by engaging the support of
AQUA, who have done similar work in areas such as Wigan and Wirral. Accountable care arrangements take time to build, but it is arguable that our
work in developing One Halton gives a good foundation for this to take
place with a degree of momentum and urgency.
