Work Streams
The Integrated Living Network (ILN) aims to provide practical support including policy analysis, briefing papers, toolkits, conferences, networking opportunities and procurement solutions delivered through four key work streams:-
The Government focus for public services continues to be to make them more responsive to individuals needs, and for services to be designed and delivered around individuals. At the same time, Government continues to drive forward challenges to deliver services more effectively, to ensure that technological advances are deployed and efficiencies produced. Increasingly, service commissioning is taking place within new/strengthened frameworks, most noticeably the Local Strategic Partnership (LSP), Local Area Agreement (LAA) and Multi Area Agreement (MAA). The changes due to take place around LAAs in the coming years i.e. removal of the ring fencing of four funding streams, and the alignment of further resource avenues should encourage more joint commissioning approaches. This approach fits well with the objectives of the ILN as it seeks to focus on outcomes rather than outputs and remove the silo mentality across housing, health and social care. Our aim in delivering these services will be to identify and disseminate key principles for better commissioning, including practice based commissioning. It will seek to deliver briefings/toolkits to support integrated commissioning, with a particular focus on the potential/barriers around the LAA framework.
Preventative Services
Preventative approaches are now a cornerstone to a host of government policies from crime and anti social behaviour to health and social care. The drive towards prevention and early intervention is a key element of the White paper Our Health, Our Care, Our Say. For the ILN, the preventative services agenda will support activity across the Reshaping Services work stream. This work stream will explore how best to resource and measure the achievements of preventative activity. It will seek to understand the strategic and policy context shaping the agenda and provide practical toolkits to capture emerging best practice. It will also seek to provide methodologies to support the capture of benefits of preventative services.
Measuring outcomes, rather than outputs, is a key driver for a range of public service activity, not least the housing, health and social care agendas. Meeting this challenge can be difficult enough in a single service environment, but how can/should we seek to measure outcomes in a more joined up manner, set against the backdrop of joint commissioning, integrated delivery, the shift to individuals not services and the changing geographical dimension? The ILN will seek to support members to develop partnership approaches to measuring outcomes and secure a more integrated performance framework.
Making best use of resources is a key business strand for all NHC business activity. As the development of LAA and MAA frameworks continues, we anticipate greater alignment of resources and an expectation that services are jointly commissioned and funded. In this theme we aim to provide analysis, dissemination of best practice and demonstration of the impact of effective integration of housing, health and social care agendas. This activity will support wider NHC work around the net contribution the housing sector provides to other public services.