Pennine Lancashire Neighbourhood Integration Accelerator

Last week, we saw the launch of promising primary care development – the Integration Accelerator. The Integration Accelerator is an exciting new way of working which provides Primary Care Networks/Neighbourhoods (PCNs) with an opportunity to explore new ways of working within their member practices and wider neighbourhood teams. There will potentially be 13 Integration Accelerator Pathfinders across Pennine Lancashire. PCN Clinical Leadership will be at the forefront of driving changes through innovation and service redesign which will benefit patients.

PCNs in Pennine Lancashire have been successful to date; however, GP Practices remain under significant pressure to meet rising demand. Delegates heard that to respond to the demand and other challenges that primary care faces, far greater integration and more ambitious service redesign is necessary to meet the requirements of the NHS Long Term Plan, which was published in January 2019. In doing this, we will collectively achieve the Pennine Lancashire vision of seamless, high quality, fully integrated place based care.

Each Accelerator site will run for 6 months with the potential to extend to March 2021 pending evaluation. Early adopter sites (Pathfinders) will commence in January 2020 with additional sites going live from April 2020. Hyndburn Central, Pendle East, Pendle West, Ribblesdale, Rossendale East and Rossendale West have signed up to participate in the Integration Accelerator. The ambition is that the Integration Accelerator will help to alleviate some of the pressures primary care experiences by helping PCNs, services and partners such as the voluntary sector, in each area align their efforts and mobilise local community assets. It will help us all to move to a model of care which takes into account all the factors which impact on a person’s health and well-being.

Each Accelerator site will use a Population Health Management (PHM) approach to identify a cohort of a specified number of patients who have high needs, for example, patients who have multiple complex co-morbidities and fluctuating need. Frontline staff, and PCN leadership will then spend a concentrated period of time (six weeks), exploring how they can work differently and in a joined up way, to meet the needs of these patients. The population health management approach is a powerful way of using data and local intelligence along with clinical and patient experience, to meet patient needs in more creative and innovative ways.