New GGI Report Highlights Need for Integration Across Housing, Health and Social Care to Improve Outcomes

A new report published by the Good Governance Institute (GGI) highlights how the successful integration of health, housing and social care services is crucial to the creation of sustainable care models for the future. The new GGI report, Rethinking the Integration Agenda, examines the challenges that currently exist in delivering truly patient-centred care and, drawing on the experience of 16 leading experts from the housing, health and social care sectors, sets out three key pathways to address these challenges and overcome barriers to integration.

The report describes three key stages to overcoming these barriers:

  • 'Living Well' pathways should inform attitudes towards care services. This demands that both housing and community-based assets are brought to the table and included in new and public debate about care. If nationally mandated and delivered at a local level, this broader approach to integration will lead to better patient outcomes.
  • Developing new cultures of care. Current cultures in organisations are limiting real-time integration, so care needs to be developed together with service users with organisations realigned around shared outcomes. Collaboration across boundaries by staff needs to be incentivised and prepared for, from basic training onwards.
  • Investment in new enabling technologies. Decision-makers should benchmark service planning in line with new models of support, and focus on unlocking the potential of information technologies, engagement strategies and assistive technologies across care services.

Andrew Corbett-Nolan, Chief Executive of the Good Governance Institute said: "Being able to deliver truly integrated, patient-centred care is the simplest and purest ideal in maintaining the best possible quality of life for service users. Unfortunately, failures in leadership, management and operational systems mean that care services fall short of this ideal, often at an unacceptable cost to patient safety and well-being. As one of the members of our expert group commented during the preparation of the report: 'Money follows the patient, but the patient just follows the beaten path to the hospital.'

"We need to create 'living well' pathways that integrate housing and community groups, as well as health and social care services. We need to invest in changing beliefs and behaviours, and in new technologies to create a new settlement with patients, service users and carers. Despite the apparent enormity of the challenge we face in managing future care, much can be achieved."

A recent publication from NHS England, 'The NHS belongs to the people: a call to action' also reaffirmed the need for patient-centred, preventative care for people with long-term and complex conditions. It estimated that if services continue to be delivered in the same way as now, the NHS will face a funding gap of £30bn by 2021.

The GGI's Rethinking the Integration Agenda identifies and examines the organisational and systemic obstacles to integration of services across health, housing and social care, as well as the issues in developing appropriate policies and public engagement. It also sets out innovative ideas for driving integration and creating a new paradigm of care, detailing the roles that central government, local leadership and organisations can take, together with the necessary funding and incentive mechanisms.

The report is part of a growing series promoting better governance of health and social care organisations, to improve both services and outcomes for patients. It is supported by an educational grant from Tunstall Healthcare.

The report is available from: http://good-governance.org.uk/Product%20Menus/rethinking-the-integration-agenda.htm

About Good Governance Institute
The Good Governance Institute (GGI) traces its roots back to the NHS Clinical Governance Support Team (NHS CGST) and the clinical governance movement. Now developing as an independent reference centre, GGI helps individual organisations develop their own governance and board arrangements, and promotes forward thinking and better practice nationally in governance, quality and safety.

Most Popular Now

AI Catches One-Third of Interval Breast …

An AI algorithm for breast cancer screening has potential to enhance the performance of digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT), reducing interval cancers by up to one-third, according to a study published...

Researchers Create 'Virtual Scienti…

There may be a new artificial intelligence-driven tool to turbocharge scientific discovery: virtual labs. Modeled after a well-established Stanford School of Medicine research group, the virtual lab is complete with an...

From WebMD to AI Chatbots: How Innovatio…

A new research article published in the Journal of Participatory Medicine unveils how successive waves of digital technology innovation have empowered patients, fostering a more collaborative and responsive health care...

AI also Assesses Dutch Mammograms Better…

AI is detecting tumors more often and earlier in the Dutch breast cancer screening program. Those tumors can then be treated at an earlier stage. This has been demonstrated by...

RSNA AI Challenge Models can Independent…

Algorithms submitted for an AI Challenge hosted by the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) have shown excellent performance for detecting breast cancers on mammography images, increasing screening sensitivity while...

AI could Help Emergency Rooms Predict Ad…

Artificial intelligence (AI) can help emergency department (ED) teams better anticipate which patients will need hospital admission, hours earlier than is currently possible, according to a multi-hospital study by the...

Head-to-Head Against AI, Pharmacy Studen…

Students pursuing a Doctor of Pharmacy degree routinely take - and pass - rigorous exams to prove competency in several areas. Can ChatGPT accurately answer the same questions? A new...

NHS Active 10 Walking Tracker Users are …

Users of the NHS Active 10 app, designed to encourage people to become more active, immediately increased their amount of brisk and non-brisk walking upon using the app, according to...

New AI Tool Illuminates "Dark Side…

Proteins sustain life as we know it, serving many important structural and functional roles throughout the body. But these large molecules have cast a long shadow over a smaller subclass...

The Human Touch of Doctors will Still be…

AI-based medicine will revolutionise care including for Alzheimer’s and diabetes, predicts a technology expert, but it must be accessible to all patients. Healing with Artificial Intelligence, written by technology expert Daniele...

Deep Learning-Based Model Enables Fast a…

Stroke is the second leading cause of death globally. Ischemic stroke, strongly linked to atherosclerotic plaques, requires accurate plaque and vessel wall segmentation and quantification for definitive diagnosis. However, conventional...

Brain Imaging may Identify Patients Like…

By understanding differences in how people’s brains are wired, clinicians may be able to predict who would benefit from a self-guided anxiety care app, according to a new analysis from...