Eight sites named for health & social care integration projects

By The Press Association9th March 2015News EnglandIntegrated Care, News England, Personalisation, Social Care

Authorities today named the first eight sites where projects will take place to blend health and social care funding for individuals, allowing them to take control of how it is used.

The first wave of the Integrated Personal Commissioning (IPC) programme will go live on April 1, providing 10,000 people with complex needs with greater power to decide how their own health and social care budget is spent.

Four groups of high need individuals – older people with long term conditions, children with disabilities and their families, people with learning disabilities, and people living with serious mental illness – will be able to take control of their budget to an agreed care plan.

As part of the programme, local voluntary organisations will help patients with personal care planning and advocacy.

Last summer local partnerships made up of NHS bodies, councils and voluntary organisations were invited to submit plans to transform the care of some of England’s most vulnerable people. Eight demonstrator sites have been selected for the first wave, which will be subject to independent evaluation.

Simon Stevens, chief executive of NHS England, said: “Our aim in this radical initiative is to end fragmented like-it-or-lump-it health and social care, by giving high-need individuals the power for the first time to decide on the blend of support they themselves want.

“Integrated Personal Commissioning gives families the chance to make a reality of person-level health and social care integration, as the NHS moves beyond asking ‘what’s the matter with you?’ to ‘what matters to you?'”.

Successful demonstrator sites named by NHS England and the Local Government Association are in Barnsley, Cheshire, Luton, Stockton on Tees, Tower Hamlets, Hampshire, Portsmouth, and South West.