Integrated Care Systems

(asked on 18th February 2019) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential negative consequences of introducing Integrated Care Systems on subsidiarity and tailored approaches to local needs.


Answered by
Stephen Hammond Portrait
Stephen Hammond
This question was answered on 26th February 2019

NHS England’s Five Year Forward View set out a clear vision on how to close the gaps of the health and wellbeing of the population, the quality of care provided, and the finances and efficiencies of NHS services. The NHS’s chosen vehicle to deliver this is sustainability and transformation partnerships (STPs) which bring together National Health Service organisations and local councils together in footprints covering the whole of England.

The areas to be covered by all STPs, including Hampshire and Isle of Wight, were decided through discussions between the leaders of local and national NHS bodies. Factors that were considered included partnership work already under way between organisations, local government boundaries, and where patients go to receive treatment.

The NHS Long Term Plan confirmed that all STPs will become Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) by April 2021.

ICSs will be expected to work in partnership with local authorities, to make collective decisions on population health, service redesign and the implementation of the Long Term Plan. The Plan set out a further requirement that ICSs establish a partnership board, drawn from and representing commissioners, trusts, primary care networks, local authorities, the voluntary and community sector and other local partners. This will be accompanied by a new ICS accountability and performance framework that will consolidate the current combination of local accountability arrangements that exists, and provide a consistent and comparable set of performance measures which could be used to assess ICSs.

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