A new report has highlighted how NHS leaders are innovating and moving in tandem with the government’s three desired shifts for healthcare, but more funding is needed to fully realise the potential.
The latest in the Providers Deliver series from NHS Providers platforms case studies and through them the health service’s ability to shift care upstream. They include:
- Tackling the wider determinants of health to improve patient flow – Hampshire and Isle of Wight Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust
- Reducing demand for emergency care by providing support at home – East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust
- Improving mental health crisis care from the ground up – North Staffordshire Combined Healthcare NHS Trust
- Harnessing a culture of continuous improvement to deliver care in the right place – Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust
- Taking the next step from hospital at home to early intervention – Hertfordshire Community NHS Trust
The development and eventual publication of the 10-year health plan is an opportunity to initiate preventative, patient-centred, and community-based care, according to the report.
The plan is set to be published in the spring. This follows the launch of a nationwide consultation to inform the upcoming strategy.
"The case studies, involving a range of different trusts, demonstrate just a small selection of ways in which trusts are already aligning with the ‘three shifts’ of the new government: hospital to community, analogue to digital and treatment to prevention,” explained NHS Providers’ CEO, Sir Jilian Hartley, launching the report.
Hartley, who will soon leave NHS Providers to take over at the Care Quality Commission, added: "The examples here highlight how they are really driving forward the ‘left shift’ and increasing the amount of patient need that is being met within the community and out of hospital.
"By working across organisational boundaries, including with primary care, and partnering with the voluntary, community, and social enterprise (VCSE) sector and social care, NHS trusts are better serving their local populations and achieving more for taxpayers.”
Trust leaders will continue to implement changes that support the care-closer-to-home agenda, but for transformation to be fully embedded, national investment and the prioritisation of primary and community care must be seen in upcoming policy decisions, he concluded.
Image credit: iStock & NHS Providers
