Update 5: 15 October
The BSW Partnership has continued to evolve as we move towards April 2022 when the Health and Care Bill is anticipated to become law and create 42 statutory Integrated Care Systems.
During September and early October, the BSW Partnership has continued to work on the development of a health and care model for BSW and recently held a well-attended workshop for all partners. The new model will inform how our partner organisations will design and deliver services across BSW in the future and is based on how prevention and out-of-hospital care will become more important whilst hospitals develop their offering for patients requiring specialist care and treating complex illnesses.
A public engagement programme on the new model will begin at the start of November.
In recent weeks the BSW Partnership team has been working with representatives from the Voluntary Community and Social Enterprise Sector (VCSE) across BSW to discuss their involvement in developing ICS working arrangements. While there is already good engagement with VCSE organisations in Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire, ICSs are being encouraged to ensure that their governance and decision-making processes support close working with the sector as key strategic partners at all levels.
With this in mind, the Partnership has been successful in accessing £25,000 worth of development funding from a national support programme to help establish closer working relationships with VSCE sector organisations and closer involvement for them in ICS decision making processes.
Working with 3SG in BaNES, Voluntary Action Swindon and Wessex Community Action the Partnership has co-produced an Expression of Interest to set out how these working arrangements will develop. This will provide some much-needed infrastructure and capacity to help the VSCE sector across BSW further engage in the work of the ICS.
Our system leaders have also been working on professional and leadership development after holding the first of what is envisaged to be a series of clinical and care professional leadership workshops. Led by BSW Partnership Clinical Chair Dr Andrew Girdher, the session saw over 60 participants from across the Partnership discussing their vision for clinical and care leadership.
Finally, our Partnership Board has also been discussing how our health and care system can follow the Greener NHS initiative to reduce our health and care system’s impact on the environment and public health and reach net carbon zero. Our Partnership Board has agreed to invite and draw on the considerable expertise of our Local Authority partners and to consolidate and coordinate existing work and initiatives into a collaborative whole system approach.