Mind the Cap: choices & consequences for financing social care

By Francesco Tamilia

The government has announced its plans for social care reforms – but do they go far enough to address the issues endemic to social care?

Reforming social care – particularly with regards to financing it – has been a major challenge for successive governments over the past decades. Despite widespread acknowledgment of the need to reform the system, it remains in flux. In 2019, Prime Minister Boris Johnson pledged in his maiden speech that he was going to “fix social care”. Following the Covid-19 pandemic, the government has put forward clear proposals for reform – including addressing financing issues by increasing National Insurance contributions by 1.25 per cent to establish a new ‘Health and Social Care Levy’.

To discuss the financing challenges in social care, Public Policy Projects (PPP) hosted a roundtable with senior stakeholders in the sector as part of its “The Future of Social Care” report series in January 2022.

Lack of funding a chronic issue

The new social care reforms were broadly welcomed by participants, although many also expressed concern that the reforms do not go far enough to comprehensively address the depth of the issues in the sector.

“We simply don’t spend enough money on it.”

Lack of funding was, by far, the most recurrent theme of the discussion, with one attendee citing lack of adequate funding as the root cause of current market distortions in the first place.

He argued that “we simply don’t spend enough money on it. Every year, the Budget comes around, and when the social care system continues to be completely on its knees, the Treasury simply adds an extra billion pounds. This is immature. If we have to put an extra billion pounds into social care every year, then let’s say ‘over the next five years, we are going to put an extra billion pounds every year into social care’ so that care providers can plan. And then we don’t have the ludicrous chaos that we have at the moment, there is a barrier to planning there. We have to spend more on social care – and this is not just about older people, it’s about working-age adults as well.”

Where’s the money?

Speaking on the same issue, another attendee referenced historical funding in the care sector and highlighted how insufficient funding has led to an unsustainable market. He illustrated how social care expenditure over the last decade has increased since 2015-16, peaking at record levels in 2021 – largely due to the extra money that went into the system due to Covid-19. Roughly half of spending is on working-age adults and the other half is on older people. Money is indeed coming into the sector, but the question is: where exactly has the money been spent, and is it anywhere close to what is needed?

“The money coming into the system has not been spent on improving access and bringing more people into the system/”

Addressing the first question, the same attendee said, “the money coming into the system has not been spent on improving access and bringing more people into the system.” Consequently, eligibility for care has continued to tighten and has not risen in line with inflation, thereby excluding more people from the publicly funded system.

If that money hasn’t gone on improving access for more people, where has it gone? The answer seems to be on the average fees that local authorities pay for care homes. Indeed, there has been, in real terms, a 4 per cent increase in what local authorities pay for working-age adults and a 17 per cent increase in what they pay for older people’s care. “I don’t think you could argue that the extra money has gone on improvements in quality. Quality measures have stayed static over this period and Care Quality Commission (CQC) ratings have nudged up. Satisfaction ratings of publicly funded clients have also stayed pretty much the same. It seems much more likely that [the extra money] is going to fund home care and care home fees,” the same participant added.

Risk pooling a welcome step

“The private sector will never provide pooling of this catastrophic risk.”

A move by the government that was particularly welcomed by attendees was the notion of risk pooling social insurance. Rather than facing a potentially very uncertain risk profile, everybody effectively pays the same amount and is then covered against those risks. “That is undoubtedly what we should do.” said one attendee. “Social care is the only big risk that we all face where neither the state nor the private sector provides risk pooling. The private sector will never provide pooling of this catastrophic risk, it must be done by the state.” According to him, taking away the catastrophic risks gives us a chance of getting a market that will work not just for individuals, but for providers as well.

Overall, there was widespread agreement that although the new proposed legislation is a step in the right direction, more needs to be done to properly address the chronic financing issues in the sector. Yet, it’s equally important that any money that comes into the system is allocated wisely. Achieve this, and the many other issues in the care sector such as workforce and market fragility, can then be addressed.

This write-up forms one part of the wider Public Policy Projects Social Care Policy Programme. Drawing together key stakeholders from across the private sector, PPP intends to lead the debate on social care reform, to scrutinise and discuss the Government’s plans as they are delivered. Led by the Rt Hon Damien Green, the network continues to convene regularly for high-level strategic roundtable discussions in order to gather intelligence, insight and experience to deliver its recommendations through the publication of four reports.

1. Integrating Health & Social Care: A National Care Service

2. Mind the Cap: choices & consequences for financing social care

3. The Social Care Workforce: Averting a Crisis

4. A Care System for the Future: Digital Opportunities and the Arrival of Caretech

If you are interested in learning more about this significant programme of work, get involved in our work and partner with Public Policy Projects, please reach out to carl.hogkinson@publicpolicyprojects.com

Vaccination as a Condition of Deployment: When will the Government listen to social care providers?

By Louis Holmes

vaccination as a condition for deployment

On 31 January, Sajid Javid, Health and Social Care Secretary, announced a U-turn on the Government’s Vaccination as a Condition of Deployment in health and social care settings (VCOD) policy. This move was anticipated by the press but for providers evoked despair and frustration.

VCOD 1 came into force on 11 November in the care home sector, and its impact cannot be understated. Since the passing of the regulations on 22 July 2021, it has been estimated that up to 40,000 workers have left the sector, a much larger sum than the estimated 12,000 which Mr Javid noted in his statement to Parliament. Since the statement, this figure has been withdrawn, but it demonstrates the Government’s contempt for the sector and lack of understanding of the impact VCOD has had on providers.

As England’s largest and most diverse representative body for independent providers of adult social care, Care England has been at the forefront of the VCOD discussion. The organisation has responded to the consultations for VCOD 1 and 2, along with advising the Department of Health and Social Care (DSHC) on what the Government must do to ensure the sector’s sustainability.

The VCOD timeline:

On 20 January 2022, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) published the guidance for VCOD in wider social care settings.
Seven days later, on 27 January 2022, DHSC held a webinar for care providers, where the guidance was discussed, along with the Care Quality Commission’s (CQC’s) approach to inspections under the new regulations. DHSC even noted that further guidance was expected to come in the following days.
As As required by the implementation of VCOD on 1 April, the care sector was putting in the correct measures to comply with the new regulations, only to discover it was all in vain.

Equal partners

Although there are numerous contributing factors to a decrease in the workforce, it cannot be denied that VCOD was a significant reason. When the adult social care workforce was on its knees, VCOD dealt another blow. Since 11 November, there have been continued reports of care home closures, and throughout Christmas, there were serious concerns about the sector’s sustainability. But providers and their staff alike powered through the changes in guidance and adapted their services so they could provide the valuable care needed to those most vulnerable.

One of the biggest frustrations felt by care providers is the disparity between the attention on the potential consequences of VCOD for the NHS, compared to social care, despite the latter already operating in the midst of the measures. The Government often fail to remember that a correctly funded and resourced care sector could be one of the main support structures for a healthy NHS and therefore should be treated as an equal partner, not a guinea pig for testing the waters for new policy.

Listening to the care sector on vaccinations

To revoke VCOD, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) announced another consultation, despite the Government’s clear intentions. Although the consultation has now ended (lasting one week from the 9th to the 16th of February), it begged the question of why care providers should play along. Knowing that their response would not affect the overall outcome of the consultation, they would have been using precious time that could have been better spent delivering care.

From the two previous consultations for VCOD, it was clear that the idea of mandatory vaccination would have crippling effects on the sector. In the first consultation, 75 per cent of the sector overwhelmingly opposed the measure, with Care England’s view being it should be down to the provider to decide whether mandatory vaccination should be enforced.

Despite continuously stating the negative impact VCOD would have on the care sector, DHSC refused to alter course, creating a huge increase in workload cost and stress for care providers and their employees. The care sector, like the NHS, is not opposed to vaccines and the time and resources used to ensure organisations were in line with VCOD could have been better spent persuading staff to get vaccinated. There is now also the possibility that we will see a higher number of employees resistant to getting their booster as a long-term consequence of VCOD. DHSC estimated that the introduction of the policy would have resulted in a one-off cost to care home providers of £100 million. It should now look to compensate providers for their individual losses resulting from VCOD, given the stress and anxiety they have been put through.

There is also no guarantee that this is the end of vaccination as a condition of deployment. Due to the nature of viruses and mutations, the policy may need to be brought back in. Although this scenario is unlikely, it cannot be ruled out given the turbulent times and the confused policymaking from the Government. We expect that going forward, the Government treats the care sector with the respect it deserves, listens to care providers on important issues and values them as equal partners in the health and social care sector.

Digital Implementation, News, Population Health February 17, 2022

Experts call for ICSs to embrace industry and harness the “patient voice” to drive innovation

By David Duffy

During a crucial period for UK health and care policy reform, Public Policy Projects and IQVIA convened over 500 healthcare stakeholders for a special online discussion to identify the challenges and opportunities for UK life sciences within a new future of integrated care.

The topic was more than timely. Only hours prior to the event, the government published its eagerly anticipated Integration white paper, seeking to clarify exactly how integrated care will improve the patient experience and bring better value to the taxpayer. The white paper follows the publication of the Elective Care Recovery Plan published on Tuesday, which sets out the NHS plan for bringing down the elective care backlog and addressing the longstanding issue of waiting times, both of which have been exacerbated following Covid-19.

In the context of these flagship health policy proposals from government, this session was quickly brought into sharp political focus. “What we need to do through integrated care systems (ICSs) is learn lessons of recent history and apply them to develop more joined up integrated care – this is as important for UK life sciences as it is for health providers,” reflected PPP Executive Chair, Stephen Dorrell.

While this end goal has never been in question, the exact role of ICSs, and by extension ICS leadership, in delivering this joined approach has often been subject to debate. Dr Penny Dash, Chair of NW London ICS and Co-Chair of the Cambridge Health Network, likened the role of an ICS to one of the key facilitator of joined up care rather than a direct provider of it. “While we [ICS leadership] have control over funding, we do not have direct control over the health service provider portfolio, nor do we have commissioning control and we cannot simply move contracts around the system,” she said. The key benefit of ICS frameworks, she insisted, was to convene key parts of the system and build a robust population health strategy.

“We are rapidly moving towards borough-based partnerships (accounting for some 300,000 people in a locality). We want to see those services delivered much more at scale, with much better ability to coordinate and deliver a population health approach.”

Matthias Winker, Head of Strategy at Oxfordshire and Berkshire West ICS, also stressed the importance of ICSs acting as conveners of care transformation. “Our function as a facilitator is crucial, we are introducing a ‘learning culture’ by bringing different capabilities from different organisations to the table. This is particularly relevant when discussing commissioning skills, provider capabilities and local authority expertise.”

A new model of coordinating care also signals profound changes to the relationship between pharmacy and the wider healthcare sector. Brian Smith, Chief Pharmacist, Applied Insights, Access & Value, UK at IQVIA, stressed that ICSs have the potential to alter focus from measuring inputs to focusing on outputs. “Community pharmacists, for example, are remunerated on the number of prescriptions they dispense rather the value they provide – this dynamic has to change to bring community pharmacy further into system wide healthcare provision.”

Life sciences: “Seizing the opportunity”

Industry should be and will be round the same table as colleagues in the ICS landscape – playing an important part in delivering innovation

The agenda to join up health and care service provision wherever possible runs parallel to developing the UK into a life science powerhouse. ICS frameworks present new opportunities to enhance access to care, develop transparency and choice, and ensure that innovative treatments reach the people who need them – the patients.

Also speaking was Dr Ben Bridgewater, a former Professor of Cardiac Surgery at South Manchester NHS and now CEO of Health Innovation Manchester – an academic health science and innovation system, at the forefront of transforming the health and wellbeing of Greater Manchester’s 2.8 million citizens.

Reflecting on the opportunities for advancing health and care innovation, Dr Bridgewater said, “There is an extraordinary and exciting opportunity in ICS development to build momentum for those innovations and exciting projects and move as quickly as we can from the same old statutory functions. We must seize the opportunity.”

Building on this positive tone was Russell Abberley, General Manager, UK & Ireland for Amgen and Chair of the American Pharmaceutical Group (APG). Insisting that the pint glass was “half full” when it comes to UK life sciences innovation, Mr Abberley outlined his excitement over the prospect of industry, “building a stronger partnership” with the health and care sectors. “Industry should be and will be round the same table as colleagues in the ICS landscape – playing an important part in delivering innovation and data to solve issues around workforce and diagnostics and moving patients through the systems.

“I think we [industry] can play a really important part in communicating the value proposition of the solutions: the data, the technology, the medicines, the diagnostics, whether it be to solve some of the challenges around workforce and diagnostics and moving patients out into primary care or out back into the community.”

Mr Abberley went on to stress that the longer-term challenges are around health inequalities, driving uptake and access to treatments, as well as delivering treatments for patients in locality.

The voice of the patient

It is not about having the patient directly in the room, it’s about ensuring the system represents their voice

An increasingly important part of the integrated care debate has been the concept of building care around the patient – putting the patient in control of their own care and ensuring the system works for them. These themes were affirmed in the recent Integration White Paper, which placed particular emphasis on the value of “personalised medicine”. However, if providers truly want to develop personalised medicine, then they will need to take opportunities to better understand the people receiving it.

The extent to which patients should be included as an active participant in system transformation has proven to be a challenging and interesting debate and speakers on the day did not shy away from this discussion. Dr Bridgewater pointed to the inclusion of the voluntary sector as an important and necessary step to securing the patient voice in system transformation.

While certainly conscious of the fact that the people sitting at an ICB meeting may not be best placed to help patients understand how to live a healthier life, Dr Penny Dash played down the idea of direct patient involvement in transformation processes. She argued that if providers consider the idea of the patient ‘voice’ too literally, it could end up encompassing an entire ICS population (in Ms Dash’s case that would include the 2.2 million residents of NW London ICS).

“It is not about having the patient directly in the room, it’s about ensuring the system represents their voice, understands their needs and challenges and [about] tackling population health and…addressing health inequalities.”

Addressing health inequality is as important for life sciences as it is wider health and care – treatments and innovations brought into the ecosystem must not inadvertently exacerbate disparities through unequal access. As Dr Dash explained, “ensuring equitable service uptake while addressing the perennial issues of obesity and smoking is the priority; this is a huge and complicated agenda but we can no longer have an environment where sections of the population are ‘hard to reach.’”

Dr Bridgewater argued that what is considered the concept of a patient ‘voice’ in healthcare might be referred to as ‘customer centricity’ in other sectors. “Software companies understand the importance of user-centric design, but this concept has not always fed through to healthcare. Achieving this will require some co-creation with people who have lived experience of this issue – as well as ensuring collaboration with industry colleagues.”

Delivering innovation

If you do not open yourself up to power of industry you are missing a trick

Industry has a huge role to play in guiding system transformation. Ahead of ICSs taking up statutory footing in July, this webinar was a timely opportunity to dissect the debate and ensure that industry has a ‘seat at the table’.

“There must be incentivisation for both sides of the equation,” said Mr Matthias Winker, “commercial innovation has yet to truly mature for ICSs, however this could rapidly develop over the next few years – but we are still a long way off from where the life sciences sector is in terms of utilising commercial opportunities to encourage innovation adoption.”

Where pharma was once considered the ‘dark side’, there is now acknowledgement that its capacity for harnessing innovation presents a powerful opportunity to deliver lifesaving treatments to patients. Evidence in recent years of this shift in mindset can be seen with the Cancer Drugs Fund, presenting a faster means of appraising new drugs and treatments – harnessing industry innovation earlier. The ICS framework presents a unique opportunity to expand such opportunities.

“If you do not open yourself up to power of industry you are missing a trick,” said Dr Bridgewater who outlined the importance of the concept of ‘agency’ in encouraging innovation adoption. This concept has allowed Health Innovation Manchester to shift the dynamic in favour of innovation, allowing organisations to craft relationships and drive technology within the ICS structures.

Life science innovation in an ICS future

Whatever happens over the next few years, the whole system must be engaged in this transformation process

“While specific roles and duties of ICS leadership will change over time, it should become, and remain, the place where strategy is developed before handing to local providers for delivery,” said Dr Dash, “and developing strategic visions for innovation, as well as measuring and assessing its impact, is absolutely the role of the ICS.”

What most refer to as a care pathway, some in other sectors would consider an ‘innovation supply chain’, and this mindset should help turn the dial in favour of quicker innovation adoption. Ensuring this supply chain works requires making priority calls about what to do next, managing the benefit of innovation against the complexity of implementing it across the system.

Whatever happens over the next few years, the whole system must be engaged in this transformation process. As Mr Dorrell concluded, “this process cannot simply be about which compound to use specifically while the rest of the system remains unchanged. Why even bother innovating if it is used in an unchanged health system?”

Evident from the outset of this webinar was that the principle of integration must extend far beyond linking service providers. ICSs have a special responsibility to ensure that the health and care ecosystem includes industry partners, harnessing their innovative potential while ensuring the ‘voice’ of the patient is a key consideration in the transformation process.

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Can Levelling Up help us Build Back Healthier?

By Chris Skidmore

With the publication of the government’s White Paper, finally we have some definition and direction to what ‘levelling up’ actually aims to achieve.

The most illuminating part of the 700-page document came in the announcement of twelve levelling up missions, most to be achieved by 2030. Looking suspiciously like a return to the Public Service Agreements of the Brown-era, mission-based policy has been back in vogue, thanks mainly to the efforts of Mariana Mazzucato, whose work had been highly influential on the UK government’s now dormant Industrial Strategy.

Certainly that strategy seems to be making a return (it is worth noting that Andy Haldane, now on secondment from the RSA to lead levelling up policy was the Chair of the Industrial Strategy Council), with some of the missions reflective of the government’s previous ‘Grand Challenges’. Public Policy Project’s Social Care Policy Network Chair, Damian Green, highlighted this in the House of Commons, welcoming the focus on maintaining a commitment to five years of extra healthy life.

Yet missions are but words on a page without a clear and deliverable strategy behind them. How these missions are to be achieved remains unknown: what is known, however, is that there is unlikely – at this point in the spending cycle at least – to be any new money to deliver them. A rejuvenation of local economies on the scale that was seen in post-reunification Germany will require a level of sustained investment that is simply in a different league to the UK’s own Levelling Up agenda.

These twelve missions are an accurate and timely depiction of why Levelling Up must succeed – but without the cash required to turn these policies into a nationally transformative reality, they risk crashing and burning. And with at least two general elections to pass before 2030, who will finally be held accountable to deliver them?

The White Paper can only have a positive impact on society if locally led initiatives are given the necessary help to scale their success. This objective is central to PPP’s 2022 Health Inequalities policy programme.

Turning an aspirational slogan into a tangible reality

The white paper correctly acknowledges central government’s role in driving these reforms, but the results of local health rejuvenation will, naturally, be delivered locally

The 12 missions are central to the government’s policy and the Levelling Up agenda is designed to “give people control over their lives” and perhaps nowhere is this principle more important than with regards to health.

Recent data shows that, even before the Covid-19 pandemic, life expectancy was stalling and declining for poorer people in most regions. Successive governments have failed to address the crisis of health inequality – Covid-19 has now laid bare and worsened this growing ‘syndemic’.

In this context, perhaps a more fitting mantra would be ‘Build Back Healthier’.

It has been long established that healthcare alone cannot close the health inequality gap. It is the social determinants of health, such as employment, education and housing that make the real difference to people’s health outcomes.

The white paper correctly acknowledges central government’s role in driving these reforms, but the results of local health rejuvenation will, naturally, be delivered locally. As such, the government’s focus on devolution is welcome news for health providers, as there is a growing body of evidence to suggest that the most effective health interventions are undertaken at a local level.

Building on Sir Michael Marmot’s ground-breaking work on health inequality, PPP has highlighted a series of compelling case studies as to how collaboration between local government, the health service, voluntary sector, business sector and the wider community can create tangible improvements to health inequality. The report can be found here.

The road ahead

The results of the Level Up agenda will be demonstrated through localised endeavour and led by a new generation of system leaders and innovators

It is clear that much more work needs to be done. This year, PPP is launching two major health inequality policy projects, Build Back Healthier: The role of business in tackling health inequalities and The Digital Divide: reducing inequalities for better health.

Sir Michael has long made the case that health is a good indicator of how ‘well’ society is doing as a whole. It is therefore reasonable to argue that health inequality statistics can be used as a clear metric of how equal a society is across a broad spectrum of indicators. In the same way that we use GDP to measure economic growth, it is not unreasonable to argue we can consider population health metrics and their relationship to ‘social growth’ in a similar way (of course this in no mean neglects or fails to acknowledge the inextricable link between economic and social growth).

Gathering together a commission of businesses, Build Back Healthier will seek to take evidence on and lead the policy debate on what businesses can do to reduce health inequalities in 2022.

Covid-19 has revealed huge inequalities when it comes to digital health. The pandemic accelerated what has always been an inevitable move towards digital over the past decade.

The debate is often pitched as binary: either we move towards digital and leave underserved populations behind, or we don’t move technological advancements along to accommodate for those people. The Digital Divide will focus on what digital health can do for underserved populations. Digital transformation is the future of healthcare and as such, good policy is in urgent demand when it comes to addressing those at risk of being left behind. We aim to meet that demand with this exciting piece of policy work in 2022.

The results of the Level Up agenda will be demonstrated through localised endeavour and led by a new generation of system leaders and innovators. Public Policy Projects is pursuing a programme of works throughout 2022 and beyond to not only showcase this work, but scale the success across a marginalised society.

To find out more about PPP’s Health Inequality series, please write to lottie.moore@publicpolicyprojects.com

Health and care: beyond simply rearranging the furniture

By Francesco Tamilia

For years now, policymakers and health sector stakeholders have pushed for a joined-up system of heath and care. Yet, despite repeated legislative endeavours, there is a worrying lack of clarity as to what successful integration truly looks like.

Perhaps nowhere has this lack of progress been more acutely felt than in the care sector. Concurrent challenges of unprecedented demand, high staff turnover and poor levels of recruitment (in no small part thanks to Brexit) has left the sector on its knees. Then there is the not so small matter of a global pandemic – which cast a spotlight on the stark reality that is the state of England’s health and care system.

Amid widespread agreement that integrating the country’s health and care system drive improvements to patient outcomes;, it is hard to escape underlying feelings of scepticism, particularly, within the care sector, when it comes to the latest attempt at reforming the UK’s health and care system. This sentiment is driven, in part, by the daunting myriad of challenges facing the healthcare sector, creating anxiety amongst care providers that they will get receive support until the NHS can address issues such as the ominous elective care backlog.

The government’s answer? More policy. With its upcoming white paper on social care integration, Whitehall will seek to clarify the outstanding questions and (we hope) finally begin the transition from policy to practice.

To help crystalise these challenges and begin to turn policy into practice, Public Policy Projects (PPP) hosted an evidence session in January 2022 entitled: Integrating Health and Social Care: A National Care Service, as part of its report series: The Future of Social Care. Senior cross-sector stakeholders in social care were convened to highlight the most urgent issues regarding social care, as well as put forward solutions to help progress them within an Integrated Care System (ICS) context.

Unsurprisingly, a recurring theme was enhancing localised decision making within a nationally driven policy agenda –- a balance that has yet to be struck. ICSs must have the autonomy and flexibility to plan and deliver care strategies accordingaccording to the needs of their populations and this unlikely to be achieved through central control.

While the government has insisted that the bill aims to enhance local autonomy, there is considerable scepticism as to whether Whitehall is truly serious about allowing a ‘thousand flowers to bloom’ outside of its control. We may never find a nationally agreed upon metric to accurately and consistently measure the success of integration and there is still worrying lack of clarity as toon what this new “structural cohesion” is supposed to achieve. The fear is that supposed government enthusiasm for integration may turn into frustration when localised decision making inevitably delivers something different than what was exactly envisaged from the centre.

Rearranging the furniture

As far as the care sector is concerned, nothing less than wholesale service transformation will do. ICSs cannot simply be another attempt in a long line of efforts at just ‘moving the furniture’, or simply creating a structural change to hide a desperately under resourced and overwhelmed care sector. Funding disparities between different care settings must be corrected and the ICS agenda must come with new, brave and bold ways of delivering care.

Whatever the debate around integration, the lived experience of the people who are at the receiving end of services must remain central to service reform. The ‘holy grail’ of integration for the care sector is an assurance that people can receive care and remain safe, with dignity, within their own homes for as long as possible.

While care providers share these aspirations, the geographical separation of England’s 17,000 care homes makes local community collaboration difficult. The latest policy around integration does include some specific points to encourage local collaboration. Integrated care boards (ICBs) and local authorities are required to establish integrated care partnerships with the responsibility of convening a broader partnership and producing an integrated care strategy.

In striving for local collaboration, ICBs need not reinvent the wheel. The foundations for health and care partnerships were put in place with establishment health and wellbeing boards, committees tasked with addressing with improving the health of the local population by advancing service integration. The boards were classified as a ‘partnership forums’ with limited formal powers rather than an executive body, and therefore they have had limited impact. However, many stakeholders (particularly from local authorities) believe that the local knowledge of these boards can be used as the ‘glue’ for ICBs to build place-based partnerships and address health inequality in locality.

The money problem

The NHS has been faced with the most challenging period of service provision since its inception – convincing stakeholders to shift resources away from the acute sector will not be easy. But integrated care must come with a rebalancing of the books, or it will be doomed to fail. Can the care sector rely on the goodwill of policy makers and providers to share resources? Or will these sentiments and shared aspirations for place-based care be superseded by growing political pressure to meet targets and reduce hospital wait times?

If any lesson isto be learnt from, it is that the sector cannot consider health crisis under a purely acute sector bracket. If service challenges and the ICS model designed to address them become subsumed under just ‘health’, there is a risk that funding support will be allocated on an acute sector basis – essentially sucking money from the rest of the system. ICSs cannot somehow become an adjunct of the NHS. It’s got to be a completely reformed and reviewed model.

Crucial to securing shared investment across the different facets of an ICS will be the establishment of a shared strategic vision. Strategy drives investment and if systems get this right and allow ICBs to be the guardians of these visions, systems will drive investment.

A theme that has consistently appeared throughout PPP’s The Future of Social Care series so far is the need for patience. The government must give ICSs the time and autonomy they need, while also ensuring that appropriate funding gets to community care. PPP will continue to hold such discussions with key stakeholders to lead the integrated care agenda.

To find out more about this series please write to me at francesco.tamilia@publicpolicyprojects.com

NHSPS generates £53 million in cost efficiencies during pandemic

By Niamh Macdonald

NHS Property Services (NHSPS)’s annual report, published on 13 December 2021, has revealed that it generated £53 million in cost efficiencies for the health service during the first year of the pandemic.

NHSPS, which owns and manages 10 per cent of the NHS estate, exceeded its initial cost efficiencies target by £20 million. These savings helped to mitigate inflationary pressures on the NHS, enabling NHSPS to prioritise the pandemic response and keep its charges flat.

There was an additional twenty per cent increase on capital investment, which saw improvements to NHS sites, such as GP surgeries and hospitals across England.

To support the NHS Covid-19 response, NHSPS refurbished spaces to create capacity for over 1,500 beds across England between April 2020 and April 2021. NHSPS also worked with customers and local health systems to set up 250 vaccination sites.

In total, NHSPS delivered 110 transformational estate projects, as part of its ‘Healthy Place’ scheme. This will benefit over two million patients and provide 100,000 sqm of upgraded space for the NHS.

A new social prescribing programme was also launched, creating 21 more spaces, and contributes towards the goal established in the NHS Long Term Plan to refer at least 90,000 people to these services by 2023/2024.

Over the twelve-month period, NHSPS has prioritised reducing the carbon footprint of the health estate, in line with the NHS’ goal to become net zero by 2040. Initiatives have included switching the building portfolio to 100 per cent renewable energy, upgrading to LED lighting and installing smart meters. This has saved £10.6 million and 8,600 tonnes of carbon.

Martin Steele, Chief Executive Office for NHSPS, said: “2020 was a challenging year for everyone, both within and outside of our organisation but it has been incredible to lead an organisation that has been so committed to supporting the NHS during this difficult time.

“Through collaborating with Integrated Care Systems and local health authorities we have adapted existing buildings to support the vaccine rollout and explored how community-based health and wellbeing initiatives can be delivered locally. We have learnt important lessons that will help us to improve the health estate and ensure it is fit for patients both now and in the future. I look forward to continuing to work closely with our customers to deliver local solutions and the best value possible for the NHS at both a local and national level.”

The digital journey of adult social care

By Louis Holmes

In the face of unprecedented challenge for the sector, many adult social care providers are demonstrating their ability to deliver impressive tech systems. Louis Holmes, Senior Policy Officer for Care England writes for ICJ.

Digital transformation in social care is often overlooked, particularly by those outside the health and care sector; the perception is that care providers are not as technologically mature as their healthcare colleagues. Despite funding issues, the inability to invest in tech, and not having access to the same level of resources as their healthcare counterparts; adult social care providers have demonstrated that they have the capabilities to deliver impressive tech systems, even when facing a crisis.

Outlined below are three case studies from Care England members that demonstrate innovation in the sector. For more innovation to happen however, resolving the funding of new tech must be addressed. Each study shows the benefits of the independent care sector, but the challenges faced when trying to invest in care tech.

At Care England, England’s largest and most diverse representative body for independent adult social care providers, we have seen countless case studies from our membership where there is strong evidence of digital maturity and innovation. Through our Digital Special Interest Group (DSIG), Care England members can ask digital questions or share their experiences with other group members. This space allows organisations to learn about new software, or avoid, when browsing for what is on offer. Members have found this group incredibly useful, thus demonstrating communication and engagement as necessary when discussing digital transformation.

Blackadder

Blackadder is a family-owned and operated group of nursing and residential homes in the Midlands and can brilliantly demonstrate the power of remote monitoring.

At a recent Care England event on the subject, Finance Director Michael Butcher explained that, in 2018, Blackadder set themselves the objective of being able to monitor their care data remotely. The aim of this was to reduce time and administration work when gathering paper audits, and ensure that the right data was available to the right people at the right time.

Through Nourish’s Electronic Care Management System and Power BI, Blackadder can produce hourly, daily, weekly and monthly reports, efficiently and rapidly analysing core care data points within their homes. The next stage of their digital transformation is linking their current system further remote monitoring systems and eMARs.

Integration and interoperability are essential factors care providers need to consider as they expand their digital systems. It can be the case that a provider buys several different software solutions/pieces without realising that they are not compatible with one another, resulting in barriers being created between the different systems. However, it can also be the case where a regional CCG is rolling out a programme that is not yet compatible with the provider’s current system. Thankfully, more is being done to resolve interoperability issues, but it will remain a pertinent problem as we see more technologies become available.

Hallmark Care Homes

To help avoid such instances, Care England member Hallmark Care Homes are creating a business intelligence system through Yellow Fin that collects data from several different systems used by Hallmark. Building a data lake allows Hallmark to mine important information which can then be analysed effectively by the relevant employee.

Programme Delivery Manager Saad Baig has developed a visual traffic light system through intuitive thinking, enabling head office to monitor each care home. Using a traffic light system, Hallmark can identify which homes needs immediate support and which homes are starting to edge towards becoming a concern.

Sophisticated systems such as the one being developed by Hallmark provide further freedom when it comes to choosing the right tech and enables quicker response times and delivery of care. It buys the gift of time leaving health and care workers to focus on their core role of delivering high-quality care.

Canford Healthcare

Through Microsoft 365, Amanda Rae, Quality & Compliance Manager, has created a user-friendly system that brings together several data and compliance sources, minimising burden and time spent on administration work. Amanda can link and share important tasks and documents using SharePoint, Forms, Teams, Planner, and Power Bi. It allows Canford to create the correct compliance documents that can then be shared with the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

Although it may seem daunting for providers to build a similar system from scratch, Amanda, who led the project at Canford, does not come from an IT background, demonstrating how easy it would be for any provider to build. This sort of innovation needs to be applauded and the huge innovation in ASC recognised, learned from and built on.

Adult social care: going forward

With Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) introductions scheduled for the summer, we must continue these digital discussions and connect care providers to the right people within each new system.

NHSX, with the help of Digital Social Care, has already begun working with some systems and helping develop their digital capabilities. Tools such as the ‘Digital Social Care Records – Assured Supplier List’ helps care providers choose a supplier who has been rigorously selected, ensuring that they can meet and deliver against the national specification.

The Adult Social Care White Paper demonstrated The Department of Health and Social Care’s (DHSC) eagerness to digitise the sector and outlined some bold ambitions. £150 million shall be invested into the sector over the next three years to help drive care providers’ digital journey with the commitment to ensure that at least 80 per cent of social care providers have a digitised care record in place. This is welcoming news, and Care England looks forward to working with the DHSC in achieving these goals.

Through workspaces such as DSIG, we can actively promote and share successful digital stories that help show the digital maturity of the sector and bring care providers to the forefront of digital discussions.

Louis Holmes is Senior Policy Officer for Care England.

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Delivering primary care at scale

By Professor James Kingsland

Primary care at scale (PCaS) entered the lexicon of healthcare in the NHS in England over 10 years ago. It should be regarded as a set of principles rather than an organisational form, albeit when these principles are applied, a larger provider organisation often results. However, there are many ways of delivering PCaS.

It is well recognised that a predetermined ‘one size fits all’ approach to providing integrated care to populations with diverse needs rarely delivers the desired improvement in quality, safety and consistency in the outcomes of care for patients.

Therefore, any structures created to deliver PCaS should result from these functional principles and assessment of the needs of the population being served. Population health management is now the internationally recognised approach to this analysis of need.

This approach moves away from episodic care to managing the care of a population, utilising data that is also focussed on predictive and preventative care.

A cultural shift

PCaS is predicated on an ability to provide improved first contact care to a larger population than individual list-based general practice, but is more complex than just the aggregation of local practices.

Its purpose is to extend the provision of health and care services within a community setting through an integrated team-based approach. Many providers of primary care and other public services are usually incorporated into effective models of PCaS.

To be successful, a cultural shift is required by both clinicians and patients which changes the dependency on the GP being invariably the first point of contact and creates new models of care management.

Whole population budget

The last (but by no means least) core principle for PCaS is to improve the deployment of health and care resources (human as well as financial) and so reduce per capita costs of care.

This often requires the alignment of clinical and financial drivers through the management of a whole population budget. Entitling clinicians to take responsibility for the stewardship of resources usually results in improved utilisation and productivity. Also investing in value-based outcomes rather than the historical institutional focus on quality and safety at whatever the cost will reduce overall spend in healthcare services.

Ultimately, a PCaS organisational form needs to be ‘the right size to do the job’ and its size allows for a ‘one team’ approach to the provision of care to a defined population.

These principles should direct the core purpose of primary care networks (PCNs) as designed for the NHS in England. To do otherwise may result in PCNs simply trying harder at what has already failed in previous NHS reforms.

Control by letting go

Whatever the model(s) for delivering PCaS, policymakers need to learn the ‘art of control by letting go’ and empower the service to move away from a centralist approach. Enabling the freedom to make decisions at the right level creates the right environment for effective delivery and leads to sustainable system change.

Unfortunately, this has rarely been achieved in the past. There has too often been a malalignment of behaviours and incentives in the system and ‘engagement’ of the service in predesigned models of PCaS has failed. Only through the development of a consistent set of values and promoting co-production with the service can new models of care emerge.

Moving away from positional leadership to an approach of distributed leadership within a PCaS model also promotes an attitude of collaboration by the people doing the work. The liberation of the ‘leader inside’ the individual creates a more purposeful style of practice for improved provision of care.

Emerging operational change

The transformation from current primary care provision to PCaS can eventually be achieved through learning from the past, seeking knowledgeable advice and using an evidence base for reform.

Often, multiple small-scale redesigns over long periods of time involving a series of well managed sequential experiments is necessary. Reformers need to keep testing and prepare for feedback, mid-course correction and revision if the change is unproductive. Operational change should then emerge rather than be planned. Reformers should be prepared to forgive themselves when things go wrong, as no-one gets it right first time.

Initiating care reform programmes and, in particular, developing PCaS should start where the energy is and where people are ready for change. An incremental approach to implementation should then be taken.

Co-production and use of knowledge in the service is paramount in order to develop a feeling of ownership rather than engagement in someone else’s design.

The ability to deliver the principles and requirements of improved service delivery through a PCaS approach within PCNs is achievable. However, there may need to be a reset in future design. The current environmental factors and a contractual prescriptive approach may prove to be counterproductive to the ambition of the NHS Long Term Plan.

Getting from understanding to true collaboration

By Dr Masood Ahmed

Dr Masood Ahmed, Chief Medical Officer for NHS Black Country and West Birmingham CCG, reflects on how a shared vision helps health leaders make better and more collaborative decisions.

I was once invited to a leadership training programme while chair of the negotiating team for the BMA Junior Doctors’ Committee; facing my own team were colleagues from NHS Employers. The negotiation, for a new national deal, was a successful one, although events in recent years make that hard to believe.

The focus of the training was ‘principled negotiation, based on Getting to Yes: Negotiating an agreement without giving in by Roger Fisher and William Ury.

Essentially it boils down to this: rather than trying to ‘win’ the negotiation (traditional ‘positional bargaining’), you will deliver long-term success if you attempt to understand the issues faced by both sides and using this as a basis for working together to achieve mutual gains. Basing negotiation on ‘understanding’ also helps develop long-term trusted relationships, something that will be essential for stakeholders across integrated care system.

“The best decisions can never be made in isolation” Dr Masood Ahmed, Chief Medical Officer for NHS Black Country and West Birmingham CCG

Integrated care means integrated decision making

Across the rapidly moving parts that make up an ICS, plans will change, often out of necessity and, inevitably, unforeseen circumstances. Secondary care, primary care, mental health, social care and other community providers on integrated care boards (ICBs) will be looking to make collective decisions based on individual and shared priorities. Uniting these goals in a health and care ecosystem still reeling from the pandemic will be easier said than done.

If ICBs can truly unite around the obvious shared goal, i.e. better patient outcomes, the focus will shift to the citizen and population rather than the organisation or provider; purpose rather than position. This could mean changing suppliers, how staff work, strategy, and everything in between.

The end goal isn’t everything. Crucial to determining the quality of care delivered, and outcomes eventually achieved, is the decision-making process prompting these changes. If we as leaders cannot make better decisions then we are bound to fall short, no matter how good our intentions are.

Good decision making must be based on collaboration and the best decisions can never be made in isolation. If there is only one takeaway from this article, let it be that. To build and grow ICSs in a meaningful way, health and care leaders must listen to all stakeholders – including staff and citizens. This is all too often lost within the NHS (and indeed, the wider health and social care landscape) when executives make decisions based on their own experience, the data presented to them and what they believe to be the right call, without a broader perspective.

Establishing a meaningful vision for decision making

Decisions need to be made with a clear vision in mind: getting to a ‘win-win’. In the NHS, vision can often be seen as a tick-box exercise included in a master plan, rather than a central priority. Sure, it’s great to talk about visionary objectives and it’s great to use this vision to get employees and patients excited. But for most, can we say that our organisational vision truly translates into action? Does it have an impact? Does it guide us? Is it really driven by our values?

My own system, Black Country and West Birmingham, has developed stronger system-level decision making by setting a realistic vision – something tangible yet ambitious that staff can work towards and stakeholders can support. The introduction of primary care clinical leadership executives (PCCLEs), for instance, was driven by the idea that primary care expertise should be leveraged in a way that uses both clinical acumen and leadership ability for maximum impact and patient benefit.

This mindset helps place the population at the heart of decision making. It’s too easy to pay lip service to organisational vision, but when this approach is implemented effectively, it can transform the way one makes decisions.

Vision-driven building supports the idea of making decisions based on first principles – understanding the ‘what’ and ‘why’ of what we’re trying to achieve. In a reactive world, where everything is moving at breakneck pace, it’s easy to get caught in the moment and make decisions on the fly. This happens in too many organisations, and stakeholders end up with choices being made without the long term being considered.

We avoid this by placing vision and principles at the heart of these choices, bearing in mind the need for better decision making for both the short and long term. When we determine our vision, we’re using first principles. When we make decisions that align with our vision, we’re being driven by the ‘what’ and ‘why’, striving for outcomes that give short-term benefit and build towards long-term transformation of health and care for our communities.

Our PCCLE for digital/IT, one of the few primary care chief clinical information officers (CCIOs) in the country, approached the issue of patient information visibility with the aim of tackling the existing issues of duplication of tests, delays in diagnosis, harm from medication and inappropriate admissions to hospital.

The understanding that improving patient information sharing is key to fixing these issues, while consulting with secondary care, mental health, ambulance service, social care and voluntary sector colleagues, supports an informed approach to the procurement of a shared care record that will create lasting change across the system for all stakeholders.

If we approach decision making this way, it allows function to then lead form. How we make these changes, and how we improve things for our citizens, can be driven by how we see the future, and what we want to achieve. Initiatives are underpinned by solid principles that are substantial, accountable and considered, and have definite benefit.

Gone are the sometimes shimmery yet ineffective programmes, and in their place we have people and processes that can make a real, lasting impact. Our PCCLE for dementia was brought in with the ambition to use her field of expertise to benefit our population. She has achieved this by helping to create stronger pre and post-diagnostic support, leading to reduced risk of crisis management (which can invariably lead to hospital admission but also keep a patient well for longer in their own home). By letting function drive form, and taking a problem-solving approach, her work has led to immediate patient benefit as well as long-term improvements for our system.

Smarter than the average service?

As Professor Terry Young writes, overcoming the obstacles facing ICS development will require a major rethink in how care is delivered.

As Luna Rossa eased into the America’s Cup final, I read that Italy’s 60 million people included 59 million sailing experts, such was the intoxication of tons of boat rising from the water to outpace the wind on foils the size of coffee tables.

Many long to see the NHS break free in a similar way. Just as the mariners had to get their heads around sails that are really wings and boats with dry hulls, so we must grasp counterintuitive thinking to get ICSs out of the water. Specifically:

Scale
Equilibrium
Agility

Scale

When I was in R&D, we would guess production costs using a scaling rule: each time production doubled the unit price would fall by 20 per cent. We started with our lab prototypes and applied the rule from there. Later, I found scaling rules everywhere. Even cities get 15 per cent more productive when they double in size (Geoffrey West’s TED Talk).

Scaling rules drive and are driven by volume: cost and quality improve with volume. Single systems serving larger communities, should reap the benefits. However, scaling rules create profound pressures in any system and may eventually force the NHS to choose between going with the grain or forging on against it toward high quality and lower costs regardless of prevalence. An example of such choices concern standardising, since scaling works best where the volumes are largest: if you offer two angiogram procedures, for instance, you lose the productivity boost, even if you boost activity.

However, in the commercial world, there are ways high-volume markets feed niche applications (which may become high-volume). I was born the month Theodore Maiman lit his first ruby and have followed lasers from glass tubes to printed chips. Prices fell steadily and dramatically for decades and suddenly everyone needed a laser. However, no-one can laser-level a construction site until someone else makes lasers cheap enough for civil engineering. Most of today’s high-volume laser applications were unforeseeable in 1960.

Health caught this wave as off-patent drugs were tried on different diseases. Successful ICSs may even see the wholesale plunder of what works for common illnesses to harvest the benefits of scale for rarer conditions. Like sailing with a wing, you need to think differently.

Equilibrium

Emergency Departments (ED) have been a global challenge for decades. This is because systems naturally restore their equilibrium, and EDs are part of something bigger. Whatever you do in the ED, the wider system restores the status quo (and usually the queues).

While this behaviour looks like a form of resilience, it can mask the impact of change until the system reaches the edge of viability. At that point, even a minor event can trigger collapse.

ICSs will therefore need new ways to measure underlying performance, as well as regular stress testing to assess how close each part of the system is operating to a game-changing boundary.

Agility

For these and other reasons planning is a new challenge for ICSs.

When I taught project management, I discovered that software engineering had pioneered a path for health. In the ‘50s, the software needed was relatively obvious, so the waterfall model emerged where requirements were collected. Designs flow from there and were built into something that could be tested. Once released, software required only maintenance.

By the ‘80s it was impossible pin down all requirements or write a good product in one pass, so flexibility was needed. As an example, the spiral model follows the waterfall model in moving logically from requirements through implementation to testing but continues to do so using prototypes until the latest trial meets the need.

Today, methods such as agile cope with the extremes of modern systems. Agile shrunk the documentation, much as foil racers shrank their keels. Agile meets needs quickly and moves on. It’s not the whole story of systems design, but it’s a start.

Summary

The raft of ‘how to’ guidance on ICSs shows that we are still in waterfall land. However, nobody can lay down a set of requirements that could lead inexorably to a fully deployed ICS. As software engineers discovered, we will need greater flexibility in design.

It would also help us if we grasped how differently a successful ICS could look compared to anything we know today.

ICSs are a wonderful prospect but require a change in mindset something like that needed to fly a boat. Unlike flying pigs, however, flying foils may appear any time on a screen near you.