Outcomes-focused integrated care: lessons from experience

This paper, an update to ‘From the Ground Up’, captures some of the learning and experience from our work on developing integrated practice with IPC Partners. As local authorities and health organisations undergo significant periods of transformation, IPC has supported the cultural and organisational changes needed to deliver outcome-focused care, as well as operational design, from the start of the process through to implementation and evaluation.

The need to integrate care has long been a key issue and people’s understanding of what it takes to successfully implement it has evolved over time. There has been a shift of focus from co-location and organisational structures towards working with teams to clarify and consolidate the professional roles and relationships which will make integration work in practice.

Here, we explore ‘what works’, offering guidance to those embarking on a significant period of change and integration on what they may need to consider. It draws on IPC's practice-based experience of integration across a range of different organisational set-ups and cultures.