Swindon

Background

Turning Point Connected Care has been commissioned by the Swindon Health and Wellbeing Board to undertake a programme of community engagement and service design work. The Connected Care project aims to involve the communities living in Central, Penhill and Taw Hill wards in the development of integrated health, housing and wellbeing services which better meet their needs. The Connected Care development project will take place over a 12 month period, starting in January 2011. The project is overseen by a steering group chaired by Cherry Jones, (Acting Director of Public Health, NHS Swindon).

Aims and objectives

Connected Care is Turning Point’s model of community-led commissioning. It puts the voice and needs of the community to the fore when designing and delivering services. This approach provides commissioners with a blueprint that enables them to deliver joined up, user-led health, housing and social care services. We focus on providing ‘better for less’ by working closely with commissioners to redesign services through a programme of change management with cost savings. More information is available here: http://www.turning-point.co.uk/ConnectedCare

The aims of the Connected Care project in Swindon are to:

Facilitate and strengthen joint working and commissioning across services to support those in need (particularly those with complex and long term needs);
Understand the needs of the population in the three designated areas so that the NHS, Council and wider partners can individually and collectively assess their own particular strengths and weaknesses and explore the benefits of joint working over the elements of the commissioning cycle;
Equip commissioners with a good understanding of changing needs, based on robust, easily accessible data;
Develop the capacity of community members to design and deliver services, in partnership with commissioners, enabling more accessible, responsive and targeted services based on local experience and needs.
Deliver greater accountability and trust between commissioners and communities, and recognise the skills and experience that communities bring

Context

People living in the poorest neighbourhoods are likely to experience significant gaps in health and social care services. Research carried out by Turning Point, in conjunction with IPPR (Meeting Complex Needs, 2004) shows that those living in areas of highest deprivation are likely to have a broad range of interconnected needs. Much evidence points to a failure in the way health, social care and housing services are able to support people with complex needs.

The coalition government’s agenda emphasises ‘better for less’ – public services reform which ensure services more efficiently meet people’s needs in a context of reduced public expenditure. Under the Big Society agenda, future service delivery will be focused on ensuring that services operate closer to communities. Connected Care will facilitate this by supporting community members to become more involved in service delivery and spending decisions, increasing local accountability.

The aims of Connected Care complement the priorities for Swindon in light of its strategic alignment and collaborative commissioning and procurement role between NHS Swindon and Swindon Borough Council. The aims of Connected Care are also complementary to Swindon’s priorities for having a healthy, caring and supportive community and being a place where local people can have real influence and feel safe. Specifically, Connected Care supports the delivery of the Joint Strategic Plan, Delivering Excellence for Swindon, which seeks to drive out inequalities in health and wellbeing; drive up service quality and access to care; and give people more influence, choice and control over their lives.

Project methodology

The key stages of the project are as follows:

· Governance A Connected Care Steering Group has been set up, comprising commissioners of health, housing and social care services, Turing Point staff and community representatives to oversee the project. The Steering Group will report to Swindon’s Health and Wellbeing Board.

· Desk research and resource audit which draws together current knowledge of the needs of the local population and their experiences of health and social care services and information about the profile of existing services in order to identify priorities areas for the connected care audit.

· Recruitment and training of community members including health and social care service users who will be employed as community researchers and supported by Turning Point Connected Care to undertake the connected care audit.

· Community engagement activity. A variety of participative methods are used, including door-to-door surveys, face-to-face semi-structured interviews, stakeholder groups and events, focus groups and community events. We also ensure that we report back to the community in an accessible and inclusive way.

· Engaging professionals. A series of workshops with commissioners, service providers, and frontline staff to map the ideal process for service delivery. We would identify the outcomes that the service user would be looking for, describe how the cases would be dealt with in the present system and describe how they think things could be done differently

· The audit report. The emerging data is analysed and presented thematically in a final report. The combination of qualitative and quantitative methodologies in the audit process provides the evidence to inform the development of service specifications for the design of future services, and embedding sustainable community led commissioning.

· Development of a service specification. Using the audit report as a basis, Turning Point works with the Steering Group to devise a series of options for future service delivery. This process enables a common understanding to be reached regarding the format and content of any future services. To achieve this, the Connected Care team would hold a series of workshops involving commissioners, agencies and local communities.

· Cost benefit analysis. A bespoke tool designed for commissioners to help test out the cost-benefit implications of service development options on the provision of health, housing and social care services. It will map, from the commissioners’ perspective, the current flow of resources across health, housing and social care and then model the consequences of new decisions.

Contacts

For more information please contact:

Jamie Keddie, Research Manager, Turning Point – Jamie.keddie@turning-point.co.uk, 02074817686 / 07854238344