[T]he Care Quality Commission (CQC) has announced it will carry out a review of the health and care system in Cumbria early next year, focusing on how it supports people over the age of 65.
It follows 12 reviews requested last year by the Secretaries of State for Health, for Communities and for Local Government, which looked at local system reviews of health and social care. Another eight areas – including Cumbria – were announced this month.
Health and care leaders across Cumbria welcome the review, and the opportunity it brings to strengthen our working relationships across the system. It will also give us a chance to assess how we are performing and learn from other areas. It will be valuable to compare notes and practices with other systems across England.
The scope of the review is limited and will look specifically at how people move between health and social care, including delayed transfers of care, with a particular focus on people over 65 years old, including those with dementia. The CQC says the reviews will help it find areas where this is working well, as well as areas were additional support is needed.
The outcome will help support the sharing of good practice and will be reported back to the county’s Health and Wellbeing Board. It will also feature in a national report.
Peter Thornton, Cabinet Member for Health and Communities said: “We welcome this review of the whole Cumbria health and care system, it give us the chance to learn and compare notes and practices with high performing system across England. We are also confident that we will be able to learn lessons from others that that enable us to further develop our plan on how we work together with our health partners to provide better service to the people of Cumbria.
