#IntegratedCare discussions with The King's Fund and National Voices

This morning I joined the Twitter conversation around integrated care that was hosted by The King's Fund and National Voices. There were a lot of interesting points made, which I wanted to capture here.

Integrated care had been a hot discussion topic for some time now, and whilst it was very encouraging to hear the issues raised, the next step is for some change! I agree with Nick Goodwin above, and sense there is a lot of old ground being covered, stating the obvious.


                

The issue of the patient perspective came up a few times during the conversation. Jeremy Taylor (National Voices) commented that "much discussion around integrated care focusses on funding, organisations and policy levers - important, but need to focus on individuals too", which is true. I suggested that the most important question is "what does integrated care mean to patients?", because after all we are supposed to trying to move away from services that suit providers, to services that suit patients! This was illustrated nicely by Simon Chapman who commented "'out of hours' hopelessly provider focused, 'whose hours are you talking about?", which sums it up well!

Dame Elizabeth Fradd made some fantastic points during the hour. She also commented that "Limited knowledge of the patient's social life limits quality of care", echoing the holistic approach that patients crave under the buzz word of "integration". She also said that "more time needed to talk, reflect and consider the needs of the whole person." I absolutely love this quote from her, which is so true, and places such meaningful value on communication:

All in all, it was a great Twitter conversation, thank you to The King's Fund and National Voices for the tweets. As much as I love discussing all these topics, I would like to see some tangible change soon . . . I am a patient after all!