Individual commissioning and NHS continuing healthcare
Some people with long-term complex health needs qualify for free social care arranged and funded by the NHS. This is known as NHS continuing healthcare.
What are we doing to transform these services?
We are currently focusing on some important areas, this includes:
- Pathway redesign – streamlining processes to ensure that service users have a smooth journey through the assessment and commissioning process, with timely decision making
- Integrated partnership working across health and social care, with acute hospitals, local authorities and health and care providers, including NHS services
- Reviewing our workforce to ensure we have the right number and skill-mix of staff to meet the needs of the county
- Working with care and support providers to ensure that we have the right care and support available in the community
What do we want to achieve with this work?
- We recognise that this process can come at difficult periods in people’s lives and want to ensure that it is as easy as possible
- We want to ensure that service users have a smooth journey through the assessment and commissioning of care and support process, ensuring that processes are entirely person centred, with clear communication and timely decision making
- We also want to help people to be discharged from hospital sooner, with the right support at the right time to enable them to continue their recovery or have their health and care needs met in the most appropriate setting
- We want to ensure our workforce is confident, highly skilled and empowered to work autonomously, reducing bureaucracy and delay
How will we do this?
We are working with partner organisations to review capacity and demand and plan what is required to meet the needs of the county.
As part of this we are changing our processes and pathways to ensure that all those involved work in an integrated way, including the individuals and their families.
Our workforce is key to ensuring a smooth and timely process so we will review our current structure and ensure that we have the right people with the right skills to be able to meet the needs of the county and will increase our workforce and recruit as needed.
By working together with the Local Authority and in turn the health and social care provider market we will develop a sustainable care market, which will ensure that people have access to the right type of care, in the right setting, at the right time.
We will also be holding sessions with individuals, carers, and care providers to find out about the experience of current services and how they think they could be improved.
What has been done so far?
We have been working with our partner organisations to plan what is required and are currently reviewing our process, pathway and workforce requirements. We have also started discussions with our care and support providers.