Salford’s health and social care system is set for a major overhaul to join up services and make them easier for patients to use.
From Friday 1 July 2016 a new organisation is launched: the ICO, or Integrated Care Organisation.
Health bosses say the ICO should deliver staggering savings of £27 million over the next five years by cutting the number of hospital admissions and ending mass duplication of work across the system.
The ICO will be responsible for nursing home care and mental health services and will be the primary provider for all adult health and social care services.
It comes after four years of work by the bodies that control health spending and policy in the city: the NHS Salford Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), Salford Royal, Salford City Council and Greater Manchester West Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust.
450 staff will move from Salford City Council to the new organisation.
Eventually the ICO will employ more than 2,000 people across adult community, mental and acute health and social care services.
It has been given a budget of £213 million.
Councillor Tracy Kelly, Salford City Council lead member for adult services, health and wellbeing, said: “We are one of the first councils in the country to completely join-up all our adult social care services with NHS health services and create a new organisation to deliver them.
“It has taken years of careful work and strong partnership links – including a successful Integrated Care Programme for 65 year olds and older – to set up this new integrated care organisation which will be led by Salford Royal.
“It’s a bold, brave move but one which I believe will deliver better and more personalised services for our residents and, in the face of reduced resources and increasing demand, it will protect and enhance the fantastic services and staff we have developed over many years.
“We’ve done this because we all – the city council and the NHS – want the best for people in Salford.”
New ‘Multi-Disciplinary Groups’ made up of GPs, nurses, mental health workers, practice staff and social workers will work together to plan care of 65s and over.
In the past this kind of care was disjointed with people often having to repeat their story over and over again to those sharing in their care.
Dr Hamish Stedman, chair of Salford CCG, said: “Over time, the ICO will completely change and transform the relationship that the NHS and adult social care has with patients, people and communities.
“We will work together with local people to try to ‘nip potential illness in the bud’. But if illness does occur, we will join up care in, or near, people’s homes and make sure it is of the same high standard right across Salford. Co-ordinated, consistent, kind and high-quality care delivered across the city.
Dr Stedman added: “Soon, those adults in Salford who have been identified as requiring specific support will be discussed at MDGs. They will be given named care co-ordinator who will make sure that their patient is seen by the right person, at the right time, in the right place.”
“This move to integrate adult health and social work will join the dots for patients and help deliver safe, consistent and co-ordinated care.”
