The Health and Care Bill which is currently working its way through parliament proposes to formalise arrangements and make ICSs statutory entities from 1 July 2022. Here’s a simple guide to what it will mean for Gloucestershire.

An NHS Integrated Care Board – ICB (public name – NHS Gloucestershire) will be responsible for overseeing the day to day running of the NHS in Gloucestershire and developing a plan to meet the healthcare needs of our population.

It will take on the commissioning responsibilities (i.e. planning and buying health services and support to meet the needs of local people) from the current CCG and some from NHS England.

The ICB will work hand in glove with an Integrated Care Partnership – ICP (public name – One Gloucestershire Health and Wellbeing Partnership) bringing together health, social care, public health and other public, voluntary and community sector partners.

This will help us to build on the real strides we have already made using our collective effort, expertise and resources.

This partnership will be responsible for agreeing an integrated care strategy for improving and joining up public health, health care and social care.

District level partnerships (known as Integrated Locality Partnerships – ILPs) and Primary Care Networks (groups of GP surgeries working with community services and organisations in a local area) will continue to have a vital role in meeting local health priorities.

On 1 February, we launched the ‘Working better together for you and your family’ Engagement.

Its purpose is to support the development of future One Gloucestershire health and care priorities and inform our future Working with People and Communities Strategy.

To support conversations, we have developed a short guide which sets out our early thinking and a series of videos which highlight some of the excellent work happening across the system.

Do take some time to have a look through the guide and complete the very short survey (just the three questions below) and watch the short films, which bring everything to life.

There are three simple questions:

  1. How would you like to be involved?
  2. Are there areas or issues you would like us to consider as we develop a new strategy for the ICS this year?
  3. What are the top three things you think we could do to improve health and wellbeing in our county?