Care Alliance breaks new ground with ‘Joining the dots’ health & social care event

System C and Graphnet hosted a joint event for the first time in October, reflecting the increasingly symbiotic relationship between health and social care. ‘Joining the health and social care dots with data’ was attended by local authorities, ICSs with social care workers and healthcare professionals keen to learn more about the benefits of creating a joined-up approach, and how to make it a reality.

The impact of the past 18 months was recognized by all speakers, with many explaining that the pandemic has shone a light on the need for real-time, shareable data, and improved collaboration between health and social care workers.

"Covid has changed people’s attitudes to sharing data. It has pushed things forwards. What we're seeing with the ICS strategy and the need for real time data, is that population health and shared care records are now front and centre of the national agenda.” – Markus Bolton, Director Graphnet.

“The Covid experience has brought health and social care into the spotlight like never before. Social care's key role and its problems appear to be receiving greater recognition. The proposed legislation has more teeth than previous attempts and gives social care a statutory seat at the table with its health partners.” – David Grigsby, Managing Director, Liquidlogic.

Early intervention and prevention were prominent themes. Martin Farran, former director of Adults’ Services & Health, Liverpool City Council, and Jim Hughes, strategic advisor Digital Programmes & CIPHA Programme SRO, shared some impressive examples of how they are using data and a better understanding of their populations to identify people before they deteriorate.

“When Covid hit, not only were we able to have testing data coming in on 30-minute flows, but, operationally, we could also move a clinic from one geographical area to the area where it was needed because we had real time feedback.” – Jim Hughes, Strategic Advisor Digital Programmes & CIPHA Programme SRO

“We've seen up to 95% of vaccination of staff in residential care homes because we've been able to be clear about which staff have been vaccinated, which homes have got a particular problem, and where we can focus some of our services and support particularly across the health and social care system.” – Martin Farran

The power of sharing knowledge and learnings across health and social care communities was also celebrated. The resounding message was that creating a more joined up approach can seem overwhelming, but is achievable with the right tools, relationships, and a focus on communication and collaboration.

“Sometimes, this type of work can seem challenging, but it's achievable. If you want to work on joining the dots and ensuring that you can share data in the right way, one of the most important things is having a well-developed information governance framework, and civic involvement from your population. Transparency is crucial in population health and good communication is essential.” – Sarah Adams, Director of Health Analytics, Graphnet.

“One of the key priorities for CIPHA has been to share learnings back with other healthcare systems. It’s a collaboration program, not just a population health programme – and it enables local decision making.” – Jim Hughes

“You can have the most fabulous population health platform with brilliant data scientists, working up lots of queries, but you have to have some system agreement about how you are going to cohort the population. What's important to a cardiologist might not be as important for social workers. We have those discussions to make sure that we get it about right for everybody - before we make the request of our data scientists.” - Sharon Boundy, Associate Director – Digital Transformation at Frimley ICS

Attendees also saw a demonstration of an early intervention pilot that has been spearheaded by Liquidlogic and Graphnet. More information will be made public soon.

Feedback from attendees was positive with comments including:

“Excellent session, very informative and lots to think about.”

“Interesting to see more of the joined-up thinking and a reminder from Markus around the importance of IG. Thankfully, the health and care sector is driving the data sharing agenda with the appropriate governance also built into tools."

“Excellent session, thank you! Really keen to see how population health for children develops.”