Oxfordshire Place-based Partnership: Dan Leveson's Blog, April 2024
Oxfordshire’s Place-based Partnership represents the leadership of organisations involved in health and social care from NHS, local authorities, primary care, public health and the voluntary and community sector. More information about the partners can be found at our website.
Our purpose is to identify groups of people and parts of Oxfordshire’s population who will benefit from more joined-up care. We aim to do more to prevent illness and reduce inequalities and find new ways of delivering care by combining teams, assets and resources to deliver the best possible outcomes with the funding available.
During January and February we focused on plans for 2024/25. In recent years Integrated Care Boards have received additional funding for urgent and emergency care. Next year these funds have reduced by 12%, but Additional Discharge Funds[1] (ADF) have increased to a similar level. We are responsible for building consensus about how to use these funds before proposals are reviewed at Oxfordshire Urgent and Emergency Care Board in March and ADF plans approved at the Health and Wellbeing Board in June.
While assessing the impact and value of our investments, some initiatives funded this year will continue, such as Transfer of Care Hub and our county-wide out of hospital care programme. Alongside these, we hope to confirm the further development of:
- Urgent Care Centres in Banbury and Oxford City providing additional capacity to support people with same-day urgent care needs helping to avoid unnecessary GP or Emergency Department visits.
- Hospital at Home delivered by Oxford University Hospitals Foundation Trust and Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust supporting acutely unwell people in their homes.
- Integrated Neighbourhood Teams bringing together health and care professionals with groups of GP practices to provide proactive, coordinated care for people who require continued support.
- Discharge to Assess enabling people to leave hospital and return home with additional social care support.
Our priority is to ensure people with urgent care needs are supported by the right teams and in the right places. Our partnership’s effort is focused on ensuring people live well and independently in their homes and communities for as long as possible. We hope hospital stays are only necessary for the most seriously unwell and people can return home as soon as they are fit to get back to normal activities.
We are entering a crucial year for our system. We need to join up services and make them seamless and simple for people who use them and the people who work in them. To meet the needs of our population and prevent future health needs and inequalities, we must do things differently and some choices may be difficult. We continue to involve, engage and co-produce with communities so our solutions are sustainable. This will be ongoing as well as through a series of public events over the coming 12 months – but more on that in a future blog.
There are so many things I haven’t covered in this blog. I hope to be able to provide regular updates on our work including with parents, carers and children, young people; the plans for adult and older mental health and the work we are doing with voluntary and community sector partners.
[1] ADF is a short-term intervention to support immediate improvements and reduce pressures across the UEC pathway, in response to increases in numbers of people with no criteria to reside in acute beds.
Best wishes,
Dan
Daniel Leveson | Place Director for Oxfordshire | Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Berkshire West ICB
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