Care Pathways
NHS West Midlands, the Strategic Health Authority, has recruited staff working in frontline services in the NHS and social care to champion improvements for people using health and social care services across the region.
NHS WM Staff have been appointed to influence and drive service improvements in health and social care in the region. As local leaders of the NHS, they will be empowered to make changes which improve the quality of health and social care services, teams and working environments.
The Regional Clinical and Social Care Leads have been tasked to deliver the improvements and solutions to the challenges identified in Investing for Health, the West Midlands regional vision developed as part of the NHS Next Stage Review, led by Lord Ara Darzi, the Government Minister and surgeon. Planned improvements include developing more emphasis on prevention rather than cure and empowering patients to manage their own health.
They will lead on building networks of frontline staff to share best practice in the care system across the West Midlands. Over the next few months, they will be engaging with clinical and social care colleagues in local and national organisations to provide strategic leadership to drive forward improvements in the quality of care which patients receive.
In the beginning
IfH described “seven big challenges”
- Despite improvements in overall health status, people in better-off areas live longer than people in more deprived areas - and the gap is getting wider
- There is unjustifiable variability of quality and safety of services and individual care in hospital, community and primary care
- Patients, and in some cases staff, struggle to understand how health services work –services aren’t always joined up and coordination between teams is often lacking
- The public – our “customers” – aren’t confident that health services will get better
- We are not investing enough in prevention
- Too much clinical activity is light on – in some cases bankrupt of - evidence that it will bring a return on investment in terms of improved health
- Cost pressures are arising from doing “more of the same” despite an ageing population, a rising tide of long term conditions and an accelerating pace of technological development
Clinical Pathways
(+) to expand