INTEGRATED CARE XXXX
The role of information sharing when integrating services
The Department of Health is among the influential backers of the new Centre of Excellence for Information Sharing. NHE heard from its director, Stephen Curtis.
H
ealth and care services are often decried as fragmented and full of silo working, but they are just a part of the problem when it comes to public services as a whole.
That is why the Centre of Excellence for Information Sharing has been launched, with support from the Department of Health as well as three other departments: Work & Pensions, Communities & Local Government and the Home Office.
Launched on 15 October by Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude MP, the organisation will be a repository of best practice but also a proactive resource for local areas where different agencies, departments and workers want to work together more closely and get beyond old barriers to information sharing and data protection.
Its director, Stephen Curtis, in an interview with NHE at our Manchester offices, told us that the Centre hopes to “sharpen the focus on what’s needed” and said the work of the Public Service
Transformation Network (covered in depth by our sister title Public Sector Executive) has been “an important starting point”.
“The issue is often knowing where to start,” Curtis said, explaining that information sharing can be split into three ‘pillars’: information technology (specifically the old myth that a database will ever share an information sharing problem); information governance (the rules and frequent situation where there are problems with legislation that is stopping information being shared); and culture and behaviour. It is this last which Curtis describes as the ‘missing pillar’, with too much focus usually on the first two.
“We need to start at ‘what are we trying to do’, and what’s getting in the way. For the Centre of Excellence, the starting point will be a story about the role information sharing plays in the service user experience.”
At the launch at Admiralty House were a team from Leicestershire with an interesting
Case study: Leicestershire’s approach to supporting people with mental ill-health
A man in his late 50s is seen behaving strangely in a park. When a police officer arrives at the scene, he finds the man sitting on a park bench marking his wrists with a razor blade. As the situation intensifies, the police officer has a duty of care to ensure the man and the general public are safe and calls for support from the ‘triage car’. The car is staffed by a police officer and a mental health practitioner who attend calls where people are experiencing a mental health crisis. They have access to both police and health systems and are able to find out more about the individual.
His name is Mike and since his wife Alice passed away over two years ago, he has had a history of drug and alcohol misuse. With this in mind, the mental health practitioner and police officer use their combined knowledge to assess the situation and are able to convince Mike to give up the razor blade voluntarily.
Mike’s records show that he currently receives support from a care team. The practitioner contacts his care worker and together with Mike, they tailor his care plan so he is able to receive additional support at home.
56 | national health executive Nov/Dec 14 How the Centre of Excellence sees its role
• Publishing case studies, guidance, templates and good practice, to support places on their information sharing journey
• Working closely with a small number of areas, providing specialist expertise to help them develop and implement information sharing solutions
• Using local evidence to influence national change, removing barriers to information sharing
• Bringing local areas together, to share good practice
case study on police and mental health teams working together there (see box out).
Maude said: “We need more collective confidence to share information, and the prize in terms of our ability to improve lives is huge.”
The Centre of Excellence is also working on projects like sharing antenatal and postnatal data, promoting earlier engagement of pregnant women and new families with children’s centres; and with electronic health and social care records.
Mark Fisher, chair of the Centre of Excellence for Information Sharing steering group, said: “When you think of information sharing, it is most likely big databases pop into your mind – but that is not the only solution. It is about developing the right ways of working and nurturing collaborative organisational cultures to bring services and practitioners, that have historically had brick walls between them, together to create better outcomes for people – which is exactly what the Centre of Excellence will be doing.”
FOR MORE INFORMATION W:
http://informationsharing.co.uk/
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