How the NHS and social care in north east London is organised has changed
North east London has a growing population of over two million people and is a vibrant, diverse and distinctive area of London steeped in history and culture.
Across health and care we have long worked in partnership across a number of areas and this has been strengthened further due to the Covid-19 pandemic. This gives us solid foundations for our North East London Integrated Care System – known as the North East London Health and Care Partnership (NEL HCP).
Our core purpose is to ensure that the population of north east London are healthy and thriving, with good levels of mental wellbeing, and have good access to high quality health and care services that wrap around the individual, and ensure the best possible outcomes.
We will do this by bringing together health partners, local authorities and the voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) sector, with residents, patients and service users to improve how we plan and deliver care and support services.
Our ambition and priorities
Our agreed ambition as a partnership is that “We will work with and for all the people of north east London to create meaningful improvements in health, wellbeing and equity.”
To help guide our work, together we have agreed four priorities, or joint action areas, where we want to create measurable change, which will create key outcomes for the Integrated Care Board (known as NHS North East London) and place strategies.
These are:
- Employment and workforce – to work together to create meaningful work opportunities and employment for people in north east London now and in the future.
- Long term conditions – to support everyone living with a long-term condition in north east London to live a longer, healthier life and to work to prevent conditions occurring for other members of our community
- Children and young people – to make north east London the best place to grow up, through early support when it is needed and the delivery of accessible and responsive services.
- Mental health – to transform accessibility to, experience of and outcomes from mental health services and well-being support for the people of north east London.
The levels at which we work
NEL HCP is the collective term for our whole system, which includes our local population, place partnerships, provider collaboratives, clinical networks and NHS North East London. Find out more about the role of these organisations below.
We have moved away from thinking in terms of commissioners and providers to thinking about whole systems – whether locally at place or at north east London level.
Marie Gabriel CBE, is Chair of NEL HCP and NHS North East London, and Zina Etheridge is Chief Executive.
Place partnerships
Instead of working as BHR, TNW and City and Hackney, we now have seven places (City and Hackney, Barking and Dagenham, Havering, Redbridge, Newham, Tower Hamlets, and Waltham Forest), aligned to our boroughs, with City and Hackney working together.
These places bring together the NHS, local government and providers of health and social care services, including the VCSE sector, people and communities, to provide a strong understanding of what works well with and what is needed by local communities. As well as the ability to integrate local services across health and care and the levers to tackle some of the wider things that impact health, such as housing and employment.
Plans for these places are in development are we expect them to work and develop differently depending on local factors. They will identify how to better meet the needs of the local population and reduce health inequalities, through their own priorities and outcomes.
They will be the bedrock of integration of health and care services, ensuring that services are wrapped around residents who need them at place and at a more local ‘neighbourhood’ level through primary care networks – GP practices working together in their areas.
Provider collaboratives
Provider collaboratives are partnership arrangements involving at least two trusts working at scale across multiple places, with a shared purpose and effective decision-making arrangements.
Provider collaboratives work together to improve productivity and efficiency so that our resources are used as effectively as possible. This could involve working at scale where it is effective to do so, improving our digital approach, raising standards, and sharing ideas and best practice. They will have a key role to play in developing the workforce we need for sustainable health and care in the future. Our VCSE sector collaborative will help make sure the vibrant voluntary and community sector in north east London is supported to engage at a whole north east London level, as well as with places.
In north east London we have emerging provider collaboratives across the acute trusts, mental health trusts, community care, VCSE sector and increasingly collaboration across primary care.
Our NHS North East London teams work collaboratively day in and day out with our provider, local authority and VCSE sector colleagues at a borough level for our local communities, and this is the core of what our new organisation does.
Clinical networks
These transformational multidisciplinary groups are focused on disease, pathways and specific work streams. They bring health, care and VCSE sector professionals and patients together from across north east London to share best practice and look at how to implement the best outcomes for patient and resident care. They proactively focus on prevention, support innovation, develop the workforce with partners, improve patient experience, and make best use of our resources and assets. These clinical networks will help to support and develop the delivery at the place level and will provide supportive leadership and resource to deliver the best outcomes for people.
NHS North East London
NHS North East London is the name of our Integrated Care Board – the organisation that replaced NEL Clinical Commissioning Group on 1 July 2022. It is responsible for planning and commissioning health services across north east London and is accountable for NHS spend and performance, ensuring all parts of the local health system work effectively together.
It sets strategies, policies and plans where these are best done at the scale of the whole of north east London. NHS North East London also sets the overall financial strategy for the health system and makes sure that everyone can get core services in an appropriate setting.
Integrated Care Partnership
We are ambitious for the change that we can create for north east London, but we will only meet that with a strong, broad partnership that brings together health and local authorities, the wider public sector, VCSE organisations and local employers.
The Integrated Care Partnership for north east London is a new formal alliance of partners with a role in improving the health and wellbeing of our residents. Together we set the overall strategy that will guide our collective work and hold the wider system to account for how services are delivered in a more joined up way. We have already been working in this way for some time through the North East London Health and Care Partnership.
Marie Gabriel, chairs the Integrated Care Partnership in addition to her role as chair of the NHS North East London Board.
