The Centre of Excellence will provide information and dissemination of best practice on approaches to community based commissioning.   We will gather information about what works and make it available and accessible to commissioners and communities.  This will include information on different community engagement models, approaches to evaluation, guidance on developing Connected Care locally and showcasing partnership working across health and social care. 

By providing these papers on an open-source basis, we can ensure that they can be adapted to reflect local circumstances, and allow commissioners and communities to share their own plans for taking Connected Care forward in their areas.

The Research Advisory Group

Turning Point’s Centre of Excellence has set up a Research Advisory Group to oversee its research and evaluation activities, in particular in meeting its objective to develop a robust methodology and tools for developing Connected Care audits and Connected Care services. You can find out more about the Research Advisory Group in the briefing sheet.

Evaluation

The intention is to refine and develop an evidence-based model for Connected Care through research, evaluation and cost benefit analysis.  The Centre of Excellence will test the methodology and model of Connected Care in a number of areas around the country and hear practical ideas from commissioners and communities on how we can improve the model.  Using this information, we will produce resources that evaluate Connected Care in different localities and draw out key messages for good practice.

The Centre of Excellence carries out three types of evaluation: 1) a process evaluation to quality assure the connected care audits 2) an outcomes evaluation, to examine the actual Connected Care service and 3) a cost benefit evaluation to focus on the financial consequences of integrating health and social care services.

More information on the outcomes framework for Connected Care will be made available shortly.

Best practice guides

Best practice on Connected Care refers to practice that commissioners and communities can use and share with one another in order to learn and improve.

We hope that commissioners and communities will find our online best practice guides particularly valuable as they provide detailed guidance on how to deliver and manage Connected Care services.  These guides are not intended to describe the only way of approaching an issue, but offers good practice which may be useful in developing Connected Care in your area.

First steps in community engagement

The Centre of Excellence spends considerable time getting to know people, understanding existing networks and building relationships based on trust before commencing the community engagement activity. This guide sets out the approach taken by the Centre of Excellence to engaging with community groups when conducting the Connected Care audit.  It presents a six-step guide to making contact and maintaining positive relationships with community leaders, and to engaging with individuals and groups from all sections of the local neighbourhoods. 

Read our protocol for community engagement
 
Review of different approaches to community-led commissioning of integrated services

As part of the Department of Health’s work on world class commissioning, the Centre of Excellence has been commissioned to identify innovative approaches to community-led commissioning of health and care services.  This will involve identifying ways in which Primary Care Trusts and Local Authorities can engage communities by working with the Third Sector and Social Enterprises and how local information and knowledge from patients, service users and the public is used to inform commissioning. For more information please contact Richard Kramer, Director of Centre of Excellence on 020 7481 7620.

Social enterprise and community based organisations

Social enterprise will be a key feature in the delivery of Connected Care services. The Centre of Excellence has secured funding from the Department of Health’s Social Enterprise Unit, to put together a short report to support the development of social enterprises by small community led organisations in the delivery of health and social care services.

The main purpose of the report will be to discuss the key issues and learning points and propose components of good practice.  The aims of the report are:

• To build on current good practice in social enterprises and demonstrate its application in a range of health and social care services.
• To provide case studies, demonstrating how good practice can be replicated elsewhere.
• Through the sharing of learning, to enable services to set up similar services.

This report will be available in Autumn 2008. For more information please contact our Senior Research Advisor, Kate Jones on 020 7481 7656.