The Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Partnership meeting on Monday 16 December 2024 will feature a workshop on Transforming Community Care. Also on the agenda are updates on end of life care and bereavement services and a refresh of the Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board (LSC ICB) Digital and Data Strategy.

Transforming Community Care

The Integrated Care Partnership will hold a workshop on the Transforming Community Care Programme, during which they will consider what success might look like for the scheme and the Partnership’s role in helping achieve that success. They will also discuss which of the programme’s priorities will drive success.

The report pack for the meeting suggests a number of elements that might define success for the programme. In particular, it points to the need to design services in close consultation with the people who use them, to maximise the use of community assets including VCFSE organisations, and to ensure joined up working across all services.

The document identifies a number of priority actions for the programme, including addressing poor housing conditions, using shared records across all agencies, and the implementation of a single point of contact for individuals navigating the system. It also describes the need for transparent data sharing and flexible project delivery to ensure that projects are tailored to community needs.

The document suggests the Integrated Care Partnership’s role in the programme will be as a convenor of partnerships across the NHS, local authorities, and the VCFSE sector. It also describes the Partnership’s potential role as an advocate for a community care model that empowers communities.

End of Life Care

The Integrated Care Partnership will receive an update on the Dying Well domain of their Integrated Care Strategy. The report pack suggests this will focus on the non-clinical aspects of end of life care.

The report pack suggests three areas of focus for the domain:

• Talking: Encouraging the people of Lancashire and South Cumbria to talk about and plan for dying. The report mentions that Last Days Matter training is being used to raise awareness of the need to talk about death.
• Planning: Ensuring that end of life care is personalised, using care plans to make sure that people’s preferences are taken into account regardless of their circumstances. The report pack mentions a pilot in Pennine Lancashire to consider how best to manage the creation and use of Advance and Emergency Care Plans.
• Supporting bereavement: Improving bereavement support by developing a better understanding of existing bereavement services. The report pack mentions that UCLan is mapping bereavement services across the region.

Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board Digital and Data Strategy

The Integrated Care Partnership will receive an update on the refresh of the Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board Digital and Data Strategy.

The report pack outlines a number of challenges that need to be addressed through the strategy. These include the existence of multiple siloed data systems that make it difficult to integrate care, a high level of variation in digital maturity across the different organisations involved, and a lack of engagement between digital teams and large scale transformation initiatives like the New Hospitals Programme.

The strategy outlines four strategic priorities that will be used to address these challenges:

• Single Digital Infrastructure: The provision of a consistent, reliable, safe, and secure digital infrastructure across the whole of Lancashire and South Cumbria. This will include a move toward a ‘cloud first’ approach for applications.
• Single Set of Core Strategic System Platforms: Reducing the number of digital and data systems used across the region, moving toward a set of core platforms that support integrated care. This will include a move toward a single Electronic Patient Record (EPR) across the region’s acute providers, a single system for electronic discharge from acute care, and a single online and video consultation solution.
• Single Data Architecture: Establishing a single set of data platforms and tools to support the use of data across the system, including the collation of data into a single ICS-wide data lakehouse that will be standardised using the OMOP CDM, enabling it to be used for research and innovation. This will include the use of a North West wide secure data environment that will eventually support access to datasets covering a population of up to seven million patients.
• Single Service Delivery and Support Model: A single, integrated approach to digital and data service delivery and support. This will include a single service desk, a single approach to business intelligence across the system, and a single approach to digital, data and technology talent acquisition and development.

The report pack also provides a series of case studies showing how digital initiatives can be used to improve services. It highlights the use of digital social care records to enable the sharing of information between health and social care systems, the implementation of Badgernet, a single digital maternity record across Lancashire and South Cumbria, and the use of a digital catalogue of VCFSE services to improve awareness of community support. It also describes how a “smart lamp” that detects and prevents falls is being used in care homes.

The report pack identifies five key elements that are being used to measure the success of digital initiatives, including improvements to healthy life expectancy and financial sustainability. It also mentions the Care Quality Commission (CQC) rating, the Single Oversight Framework score, and the achievement of the aims of the New Hospitals Programme.