[D]iscussions with health staff employed by Cumbria Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (CPFT) and University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust (UHMB) about the greater integration of hospital and community services across the Morecambe Bay area will continue following approval of an Outline Business Case by the boards of both organisations.
The Outline Business Case (OBC) approval means that discussions can now continue with staff over the proposals, which would see the creation of integrated teams by the end of the financial year across hospital and community services in Morecambe Bay.
Work will now also take place on the financial and governance arrangements with a view to taking a Full Business Case back to the boards of both organisations by the end of the calendar year.
Staff will be able to ask questions about the plans in a number of ways, both online via special feedback forms, and at special drop-in sessions being organised during the process, as well as other events to be arranged over the coming weeks.
There are also plans for teams to continue talking across the community and hospital services to further develop integrated services to bring benefits to patients and the public.
Those teams will also work with Integrated Care Teams in each community across Morecambe Bay to ensure the services link together across the area.
A key element of the Better Care Together plan has been the creation of 12 GP led integrated care communities across the Morecambe Bay area. The integrated care communities will also provide valuable local clinical leadership alongside community services, to help support the provision of a more seamless service for the patient between primary and acute-care.
The services which are proposed to integrate are as follows:
- District Nursing Service
- Heart Failure, including Cardiac Rehab
- Respiratory
- Integrated Rapid Response
- Community Physiotherapy, including rehabilitation
- MSK Physiotherapy
- Podiatry
- Tissue Viability Nurses
- Continence Nursing Team
- Speech & Language Therapists (SALT)
- Step up / step down and Community Hospitals Abbey View, Millom, Langdale wards
- PCAS at WGH
- Better Care Together (BCT) investment posts
- Specialist Palliative Care
Discussions on the arrangements for other services – and support services provided by Cumbria Partnership NHS Foundation Trust on a countywide basis – will continue.
CPFT Chief Executive Claire Molloy said: “Together with our Bay Health and Care partners, we want to work in a much more integrated and ‘joined up’ way to improve patient care and experience. This has always been the ambition of our Better Care Together strategy.
“The formal approval of the Outline Business Case allows us to talk in more detail about how this will look – ensuring that we bring benefits to patients and the public by working in a more integrated way, reducing duplication and allowing the services to offer more consistent care across the whole of Morecambe Bay.”
UHMB Chief Executive Jackie Daniel said: “We want all our teams both in the hospital and community services to be involved in the development of detailed plans.
“We will continue to include staff, unions, governors and GPs at all times during this process – ensuring they have the opportunity to influence how this happens.
“It is our intention to have the services integrated across the entire Morecambe Bay area by April 1 2018, but recognise there is much work to complete before then.”
