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COMMENT


COMMENT


Practical moves towards ‘person- focused’ community healthcare


Bob Wills, director at Medical Architecture, explores the movement to design health facilities with a focus on individuals and not illnesses, and with less reliance on acute hospitals and more focus on integrated community facilities for holistic wellbeing


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ublished in February this year, a new report by The King’s Fund offers a fresh perspective on a challenge that the NHS has faced for many years. It recalls that, “since at least 1974, and arguably earlier, successive governments have aimed to make the health and care system less hospital-focused and more focused on primary and community care.” It cites the World Health Organisation and its view that this approach is the most inclusive, effective, and effi cient way to enhance people’s physical and mental health and wellbeing.


This is about “improving both the experience and the quality of care that people receive, while boosting prevention or, at the very least, reducing the speed of onset of disease,” says the King’s Fund. “It is also about meeting people’s needs and making sure each part of the health and care system is freed up to provide the care it is best placed to offer.”


Many of us will recognise this as a proactive, preventative approach to health, as opposed to a reactive, treatment-based approach, with care delivered closer to people’s homes.


Jean Bishop Integrated Care Centre © Jill Tate


WWW.ARCHITECTSDATAFILE.CO.UK


ADF MAY 2024


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