Publications from ODSW Social Insights: Letters by DSW (Vol 2) | Seite 51

Working with Various Client Groups

Dear Social Service Practitioners,
Promoting Integrated Care and Collaboration
It is common to hear the exhortation to promote integrated care and
collaboration. What do people generally mean when they say this? It could
often mean a combination of the following ideas from being person-centric,
having services delivered by one main provider, having two or three systems
talk to each other to having a one-stop centre or a one-stop service delivery.
As we all know, while all these sound very good, they often include quite
different ideas and are not easy to construct or translate into practice. At
the national policy level, it is about having adequate resources to ensure a
balanced service system where there are good primary and community care
services, as well as acute health and residential care provision. It is about
using funding to shape organisational and individual responsibilities that
result in integrated practice and service models.
Currently, we have a coherent regulatory and inspection system for health
and social care but we could do a lot more in the area of supporting family
carers by strengthening integration between the formal and informal
systems of care. The focus now is on supporting carers to work with the
formal structures. The innovative approach would be to have the formal
structures be more responsive to the carers who are after all going to carry
the heavy lifting for the longer haul after clients are discharged from acute
services. With the changing demographics and ageing population, housing
policies are increasingly being shaped to support older people by ensuring
that communities have appropriate services for t hem.
Where resources allow, it will be ideal to support innovative approaches
that offer choice, flexibility and control by older people. As we think
harder about these ideas, we should challenge ourselves to consider new
integrated service models, strengthen intensive care management for older
people with complex needs and introduce assistive technology to support
people in remaining independent in their own homes.

A Starting point
Perhaps one way to begin to take on the challenge is to consider new ways
of organising the structures, systems and staff roles, which may sometimes
mean combining different roles. Other ideas may include allowing older
people and carers to be more involved in how the services they need are
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