The new vision for health and social care services in Herefordshire has taken a major step forward with the setting up of a new Transition Board. The board will produce proposals on how health services in the community, in GP practices and in hospitals can link up, together with social care services, to deliver modern and efficient ‘pathways of care’.
It’s all part of the Shaping Health and Wellbeing in Herefordshire programme, which involves the whole of the local NHS and the council’s adult social care services in reviewing how services could be brought together, designed and provided around the needs of individuals.
The Transition Board has an independent chair, clinical representation and patient representation, to ensure that GPs and other clinicians have a strong role in determining how their patients get the best possible care and treatment. There is also senior management representation from the strategic health authority, hospital, primary care trust and the council. The board will focus on how patients are supported through their ‘journey of care’ to provide improved services and better outcomes, whilst also reducing duplication.
The board will also consider whether a new organisation needs to be created to achieve this. It will recommend a preferred option for approval by statutory organisations and prepare material for public consultation on behalf of the PCT.
To get to this stage, professionals in health and social care have been working closely together over the last two years, and have held several workshops in Herefordshire. When considering future models, the working groups favour the close integration of health and social care services across the PCT, the hospital and the council. This is intended to improve services and develop or personalise them around the needs of individual patients, usually closer to the patient's home. The programme also wants to develop stronger high quality networks of health staff - from GPs to health visitors and pharmacists. This is in order to make sure services are available throughout the communities of Herefordshire and that the expertise of specialists is used as efficiently as possible.
It is likely to mean exciting changes to services as they are delivered from the most appropriate locations, rather than a decision based on buildings or preferences of individual organisations. The key objective is to build on work previously undertaken and not to ‘reinvent the wheel’.
Around 100 clinical and social care staff will meet at a key stakeholder event to contribute to plans for the Shaping Health and Wellbeing in Herefordshire programme. The event is planned for Friday 6 November. A follow on workshop will be held in December to hear the output from the clinical task group work.
It is critical after all of the previous work that has been undertaken that we ensure these new ways of working are implemented in a structured way and that this process is led by clinical staff.
Further updates will be regularly available to colleagues. A project office is being set up and will coordinate the work across the programme. There is a special web site set up for people interested in progress: http://www.myherefordshire.com/shapinghealthandwellbeing