Integrated Care Partnerships were established in 2013 with funding secured for three years initially to support the establishment of the 17 local partnerships to work closely with Local Commissioning Groups in helping to design and deliver more integrated care at a local level.
Six years later ICPs have demonstrated the impact that having the opportunity to work across organisational and professional boundaries can have, through the delivery of a range of more integrated services, and also the value of building strong relationships evidenced through the continued existence of those partnerships despite some challenging times and an uncertain future.
In May 2019 the very welcome confirmation was received that ICPs are now funded on a recurrent basis enabling the Partnerships to be refreshed and to further evolve to reflect the ever changing health and social care environment.
An ICP work plan for 2019/ 20 has been agreed which will see ICPs focus on delivering against a number of transformation priorities in an integrated way at a local level.
ICPs are also delighted to contribute to an exciting area of work sponsored by the Transformation Implementation Group (TIG) to test the development of an Integrated Care System prototype in the Northern area. This programme is being led by the Northern Trust and will test a new way of working which will facilitate much more collaboration and integration in both the planning and delivery of improved health and wellbeing for the population of Northern area. It is grounded in some of the lessons learned through the ICP programme to date.