The Transformation Programme has now finished and been replaced by the Regional Integration Fund.
We are committed to ensuring that people in North Wales experience care that is delivered closer to home. To help us achieve this we will strengthen health and social care services within communities. We will bring the range of primary and community health care, social care, and independent and third sector services together to develop integrated health and social care localities based on the geography of primary care clusters. We will strengthen the link between these localities and our Community Resource Teams (CRTs) as well as provide seamless and timely access to acute hospital care when it is needed.
This Place-Based model will:
- Listen to and be Informed by the experience of people in North Wales
- Recognise the strengths of communities as well as work with communities to build their resilience
- Empower communities to shape and design care and support
- Breakdown barriers to services as well as reduce duplication between agencies and professions
- Maximise the resources that are valued and redesign those that are not
What is health and social care integration?
Integrated health and social care within localities will mean that we can bring services together within people’s communities, and ensure that they are coordinated, easier to access and better able to deliver what matters to people.
Council and community health services, as well as a range of support delivered by community groups and voluntary organisations will be joined up and delivered within new integrated health and social care localities. These services will include:
- Community Nursing
- GPs
- Social Work
- Pharmacists
- Physiotherapy
- Occupational Therapy
The people of North Wales have been very clear that they want to have better access to services in their own communities, and that they want to continue living in their own homes for as long as possible.
These new integrated health and social care localities will improve support available within communities, meaning that people can remain in their own homes for longer, with better access to a range of services to meet their needs.
What’s happening in North Wales?
In North Wales the integration of Community Health and Social Care Services is underway. Representatives from all sectors including Councils, NHS and the Third Sector have come together to form Area Integrated Service Boards (AISBs).
The Boards are committed to listening to the views of local communities and local professionals and to involving them in their efforts to plan services and support, in a way that meets the needs of local people.
Three Area Integrated Service Boards covering the West (Anglesey and Gwynedd), Central (Conwy and Denbighshire) and East (Wrexham and Flintshire) have been set up to drive this change forward.
Locality Leadership teams are being established and will be responsible for the commissioning and delivery of services within each of the new integrated Health and Social Care Localities.
Planning services at the Locality level is intended to improve the relationship between statutory Health and Social Care services and communities. Locality Leadership teams will provide support to existing community-based services and activities as well as develop new opportunities where none exist currently.
We will focus on improving the health and well-being of people in North Wales. People will be able to better access a whole range of support within their own communities, earlier, and we will move away from providing specialist services, such as traditional day services, and connect people to everyday activities within their local community instead.
Delivering Care Closer to Home << insert hyperlink>> will mean that we are able to support more people to stay in their own homes for longer, with fewer admissions to hospital and fewer people needing to move into long-term care.
Integration Enablers:
Strong, resilient and connected communities
A key element of our integrated service model is the contribution of the third sector in supporting well-being services, promoting inclusion and participating in supporting well-being services, promoting inclusion and participation and co-ordinating social prescription.
In the consultation undertaken to support the development of our Area Plan under the Social Services and Well-being Act, we identified reducing loneliness and isolation as one of the main challenges for many. Enabling participation in meaningful activities can help combat these challenges.
The importance of having flexibility to continue with locally determined programmes for well-being services, rather than a more unified “one-size-fits-all” delivery mechanism, is key. Our aim is to ensure that each integrated health and social care locality in North Wales develops its own approach based on community assets, ensuring that the programmes are tailored to the needs of individuals and communities. This approach builds on the early intervention work that has already been established in local authority areas within North Wales and the success of current well-being initiatives, scaling this up and linking to the integrated approach we are developing.
A skilled and steady workforce
The development of a sustainable workforce is perhaps the most challenging task ahead.
In March 2018 we developed a North Wales Social Care and Community Health Workforce Strategy. This strategy recognised the need to address workforce and sector sustainability issues across the market; and the changing roles, tasks, responsibilities, skills and knowledge required to support this. The strategy identified as a priority the move towards more generic roles and the need for a cross-sector approach.
We are developing a range of workforce projects to underpin the development of our new workforce model. This includes work around skills development across the whole health and social care community system, exploring skills mixes and the new roles required to deliver on this model. Joint training frameworks and career structures/ opportunities for progression, and joint workforce planning, asset mapping, recruitment and promotional activity.
Critically, we will work with the independent and third sector to harness the skills of the care workforce better and to develop in partnership roles and career opportunities within and across organisations.
Digitally enabled care
Technology is a significant enabler to our model, both in terms of enabling communication and data sharing across the whole social care and health sector. In North Wales, the need for the development of bilingual solutions to support and promote the use of the Welsh language is of critical importance. We recognise that as a region we need to enhance our use of telecare, telehealth, apps and other digital solutions so that this can be used to enable individuals to remain at home. This would also assist in ensuring that specialist advice could be provided without the need for visits to acute hospital sites. To support this, we are proposing to establish dedicated capacity to work alongside the overall integrated locality development programme. The key deliverable would be the identification of a model for digitally-enabled care, support and well-being that can be developed across North Wales and adapted to meet local need.