Health and social care that fits around you
The future of the NHS and social care has been grabbing the
headlines over the last two years and the idea of bringing the two
together has become a key priority nationally.
Kent Social Services, Kent and Medway NHS and Social Care
Partnership Trust and Kent Community Health NHS Trust have been
working together to join up community health and social care
services in the county to deliver them in a more personalised way.
This group is also known as the Health and Social Care Integration
Programme (HASCIP).
Why are we doing this?
Service users have told us they want us to be better at sharing
information and communicating across organisations and this
programme will help do just that.
It will build on existing examples of integrated working between
health and social care and will help staff work side by side, to
share information and skills to deliver care and support around an
individual’s needs.
We want to make our services fit around the service user to give
them more choice and control.
Testing out how it works in practice
We are starting this work from 1 April in Dover, Swale and
Maidstone and Malling.
We will review the progress and people’s experiences to help us
make any changes necessary to improve the way the service is
delivered, throughout the six months.
We will also be testing out our health and social care staff
being based in the same location and linked to GP Practices, and
looking at a local single point of access for both health and
social care.
Services involved include primary care nursing, community
matrons, older people’s mental health services, intermediate care,
social care enablement and social care case management (care
co-ordination).
The service will be:
- easy to get in touch with and use
- delivered locally around GP Practices
- based on the principle of “one assessment”
- focussed on preventing admission to hospital and dependency on
long term care
- based around the needs and choices of the individual
- efficient, effective and good value for money.
What happens after the first six months?
We will evaluate how the new way of working is performing in
Dover, Swale and Maidstone and Malling. During the first six months
we will be gathering lots of feedback from all involved, including
service users, their families, and staff. This will help us
understand what went well and what did not go so
well.
A report will be written taking into consideration all the
information gathered and will recommend how we take things forward.
If proposals include further changes, we will make sure that we
inform and engage everyone involved.
If you want to know more about the programme or have any
questions that you want answered please don’t hesitate to get in
touch by emailing: involveme@kentcht.nhs.uk
or sending a letter to:
Engagement Team
Kent Community Health NHS Trust
Trinity House
Eureka Business Park
Ashford
Kent
ME20 7NJ