Feedback on the Integration Standard

Summary of feedback on the Department of Health’s draft Integration Standard.

The feedback on the Standard can be summarised as follows.

• The starting point for the Standard should be the patient/service user or citizen.
• The Standard should recognise that integrating care requires a set of complex interventions and behaviour changes at all levels of the health and care system, national agencies, local commissioners and providers, professionals and users.
• Local context matters. Although there are common elements, integration will look different in each local area, and the standard should accommodate this variability, avoiding a ‘one size fits all’ approach.
• The Standard should recognise integration as an enabler of more cost-effective care, rather than a key driver for savings.
• The Standard must adapt to, and be consistent with, the wider transformation agenda in health and social care. Government must nonetheless restate its commitment to integration if the ambition is to be realised and explain how different policy drivers, such as Sustainability and Transformation Plans contribute to integration.
• A national framework is needed to address some of the barriers to integration.
• Some specific modifications and additions to the Standard would improve its utility and effectiveness.

There was a significant level of consensus that the proposed Standard:

• is too focused on structural- and process-related measures as opposed to outcomes
• lacks the patient and user perspective
• is too focused on health and the acute sector in particular – it needs to focus on ‘the whole system’ including primary, community and social care
• needs to recognise and measure the role of systems leadership
• needs to recognise and measure workforce strategy
• needs to include both national and local measures.