Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to promote collaboration among all professions and support staff within the NHS to ensure comprehensive, patient-centred, and integrated healthcare.

On 1 July 2022, the Government established statutory integrated care systems (ICSs). ICSs are partnerships of organisations that come together to champion an integrated approach to person-centred care. This aims to bring together professionals from health and social care, alongside local and voluntary partners, to support people to retain their independence, health, and wellbeing for longer.

Furthermore, the Major Conditions Strategy will focus on where there are similarities in approach between major condition groups and ensure care is better centered around the patient. It will outline how our workforce model needs to adapt, reflecting that the National Health Service is caring for patients with increasingly complex needs and with multiple long-term conditions.

In October 2023, the Government published the Shared outcomes toolkit for integrated care systems in an online-only format to support the development of shared outcomes as a powerful means of bringing professionals together to promote integrated care. The Government expects that from March 2024, all places within ICSs can evidence their work towards developing shared outcomes.

Finally, NHS England e-learning for healthcare is working in partnership with the NHS and professional bodies to support patient care by providing e-learning to educate and train the health and social care workforce. This includes e-learning on how to work as a multidisciplinary team.