Care integration
Joined-up care – what is it and why it is so relevant
Jonathan Papworth, co-founder and director of Person Centred Software, unpacks the opportunities and challenges arising from the complex matter of closer data integration between health and social care
In the not too distant future, there will be no doubt people will say, ‘Do you remember when you had to tell the doctor what your problem was, and if they referred you to a consultant, they then asked you the same thing again? If you then had to see a specialist, they would ask the exact same thing. It was ridiculous that each person had to ask the same questions over and over again!’. This situation is even worse for people
in long-term social care, and in particular for people living with learning disabilities, where family members find themselves repeatedly explaining that their loved one reacts negatively to what health care staff would consider a routine procedure. That could be taking blood pressure,
for example, where for some people it can trigger anxiety or even a panic attack. The current situation where information is not being shared will one day be seen as archaic - and in many aspects of our lives it already is. Personal data such as credit card details can be entered once, stored securely, and used for purchases from any number of different organisations. We expect this as part of our daily lives,
so why is personal data about our health needs not shared among the people who provide care? The simple answer is that it is complicated, but in the past few
months significant progress has been made in joining up health and social care information. The reason why care records being communicated across health and social care is challenging is that there are many different systems used. Even within one hospital, for instance, there will be different systems for different teams - each focused on helping people use them with their particular specialism. There have been a number of attempts
to enhance information flow between the different systems over the years, and this has led to some improvements, particularly with GP systems where GP Connect has helped make patient medical information available to all appropriate clinicians.
Covid-19 created an environment where patient needs were greater than the need to conform to the bureaucracy
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There are obstacles to gaining access
to this medical information outside of NHS practitioners though, and social care in particular has been locked out of accessing this information in the past. Access to GP Connect is changing for social care, but there is an obstacle that care providers need to overcome – I will explain more on this later.
Need for change Even within the NHS, there are problems with the current arrangements which create excessive bureaucracy. A recent survey found that over two-thirds of NHS providers agree that the current NHS regulatory framework is not working well. Covid-19 created an environment
where patient needs were greater than the need to conform to the bureaucracy. This has been seized upon by NHSX as an opportunity to improve sharing data across the whole of health and social care. NHSX has given a commitment to achieving eight priorities, which are:
www.thecarehomeenvironment.com • March 2021
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