Waiting for the South Yorkshire Integrated Care Partnership
UPDATE – 24th October 2022
Since I published this blog on the 3rd of October the original South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw ICS website has been updated. It now appears to be the platform for the new Integrated Care Partnership.
3 months after the NHS restructured we are still waiting for the South Yorkshire Integrated Care Partnership to be formally launched.
Quick Explainer
Since July 2022 Integrated Care Systems (ICS) are the way the NHS is organised. England has been divided into 42 sub regions each with an Integrated Care Board (ICB) – mainly focussed on the NHS and an Integrated Care Partnership (ICP) – with a broader strategic remit including local government and the voluntary sector.
ICPs are responsible for producing the Integrated Care Strategy for the ICS.
It’s the Integrated Care Partnerships that puts the ‘I’ in ‘ICS’
Integrated Care Partnerships are important, but there seems to be significant variation in the progress being made to establish this basic infrastructure that is part of Integrated Care Systems.
Lets have a look at Yorkshire (population 5.4 million)
In Yorkshire there are 3 ICS. Two appear to have an Integrated Care Partnership up and running with clear links to it via the Integrated Care Board these are West Yorkshire and Humber and North Yorkshire.
3 months into the creation of the new health structures the only mention that I can see of the South Yorkshire Integrated Care Partnership is an announcement that the South Yorkshire Mayor has been appointed Chair. There appears to have nothing up at the moment that the public can see – not even a note on the website saying that this is a work in progress, watch this space etc etc.
I think the resources and responsibility to establish the partnership rest with the Integrated Care Board not the Mayoral Combined Authority (MCA) … although it would be refreshing if the SYICB were to pass the resources for coordinating the Integrated Care Partnership over to the MCA.
Here are the screenshots from the three Integrated Care Boards showing how we can find out what the Integrated Care Partnership is doing, who is on it etc.
West Yorkshire
Humber and North Yorkshire
South Yorkshire
Meanwhile in South Yorkshire
I have heard informally it that the South Yorkshire Integrated Care Partnership had a private meeting in the week starting the 28th of September, and that Oliver Coppard the Mayor for South Yorkshire has been confirmed as Chair
However, at the moment it is not possible to know:
- Who is on this partnership
- What its agenda is
- What its forward plan for meetings are
Does any of this matter?
The government guidance is clear:
“The integrated care partnership MUST involve in the preparation of the integrated care strategy: local Healthwatch …. and people who live and work in the area.”
“In order to influence the first 5 year joint forward plans the integrated care partnership would have to published an initial strategy by December 2022”
In South Yorkshire we have less than two months for the public and communities to get there head around what an Integrated Care Partnership is let alone to then engage and comment on the strategy.
Current Position
This is how I rank the three Integrated Care Systems with regard to how they publicise the role of the Integrated Care Partnership
First – West Yorkshire
- a clear accessible website – that shouts their values.
- The website also makes it easy to click on the ICP pages – one click away!
- There are also clear links to the agendas and minutes of previous meetings. It is easy to find out who the partners are – with logos to each organisation that click through to the relevant website.
Second – Humber and North Yorkshire
- website nice & friendly
- it does take 2 clicks to get to the ICP pages
- the ICP link is a bit hidden in the Integrated Care Board Page.
Third – South Yorkshire
- nothing to see here!
I would be very interested to hear from people living in other ICS areas outside Yorkshire. How easy is information about your Integrated Care Partnership to find? Who is on it?
What do you think?
I also have some concerns about the variable speed and transparency of these processes. Feel free to make contact Mark
This blog is a little confused. The links you are directing to for the first two are not to ICPs, they are to the broader ICS websites.
You’ve done a disservice to South Yorkshire really, because their equivalent website can be found easily: https://syics.co.uk/
The difference is just that, historically, South Yorkshire haven’t called their Integrated Care System a partnership. (ICSs preceded the legislation introduced in July, so the terminology can be confusing and differs across regions).
ICS = ICB (a statutory organisation) + ICP (a statutory joint committee)
It doesn’t seem that anyone is behind the curve here. The expectations in guidance – notwithstanding the lighter touch strategy needed for year 1 – are that ICPs were to be formally establish with mandatory members on 1 July, and thereafter develop their governance, ways of working and additional membership in year 1.
Hope that helps.
Thank you for your comments. The current situation is confusing! That being said it’s not helped by old websites that are no longer in use. I am afraid that the website you refer to is no longer in use – The last item posted on it under ‘news’ was in June 2021 – the last month of the old NHS structures. I have had a very helpful and honest response on twitter to my blog from the South Yorkshire Mayor who is chairing the new Integrated Care Partnership in South Yorkshire – this is what he said:
“Hi Mark, read the post and I can only say it’s very fair criticism. I’ll speak to colleagues about making clear where we are in terms of process and planning. For the avoidance of doubt we did hold a meeting last week largely to confirm arrangements, and Healthwatch were there.”