Health and Social Care

Making Real Improvements in the Drive towards Integrated Care

June 13, 2014 by Eilidh Smith No Comments | Category Uncategorized

At the 14^th International Conference on Integrated Care in Brussels in April, professionals in the field of integrated care and long-term condition management got together to exchange knowledge, experience and new ideas.

The programme was focussed on the following four strands of integrated care design and delivery:

•  Designing policy to support integrated care
• Supporting integrated care in practice
• Managing the transition towards integrated care
• Thinking – differently – innovation and new technologies

The conference, entitled Taking Integrated Care Forward: People, Policy and Practice was run by the International Foundation for integrated Care and was attended by 500 delegates from over 100 countries.

Scotland was represented at this event and the Scottish integration cohort – Alison Taylor, Head of Integration Unit, Health and Social Care Directorates, Dr Anne Hendry, National Clinical Lead for Integrated Care, Joint Improvement Team and Elaine Mead, Chief Executive, NHS Highland ran a parallel session on day two entitled Policy making towards Integrated Care in Scotland.

Alison Taylor said: “The conference provided a great opportunity for us to showcase Scotland’s approach to integrating health and social care with the rest of the world.

“One of the main highlights was listening to keynote speaker, Derek Feeley, ex Director-General Health and Social Care, now Executive Vice-President, Institute for Healthcare Improvement talking about the leadership required to make real improvements in the drive towards integrated care. He also shared his three top tips for taking integrated care forward:

•  See it as a means to an end – be clear about the purpose
• Build a coalition – involve and engage patients and professionals
• Put your money where your mouth is and resource it properly.”

View all resources from the conference.

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