Carers’ needs span health and social care so, perhaps unsurprisingly, partnership working was identified as key to providing joined up seamless services and continuity of care. This can be supported through the NHS working with local authorities, voluntary organisations and local communities to support carers. The use of Joint Strategic Needs Assessments for partnership agreements can support this.

Using the above image as a scale where red is lowest and green is highest. How would you rate the below questions.

• How assured are you about your partnership arrangements i.e. when a person is discharged from hospital to community services, how is their carer linked into support services?
• How do you rate your partnership arrangements with regard to carers’ services?
• How assured are you that you involve carers as partners in your commissioning decision process?

A core component of whole systems integrated care is the concept of outcomes commissioning. In the planning guidance the £3.8bn Better care fund includes £130m of NHS funding for carers’ breaks. Local plans should set out the level of resource that will be dedicated to carer-specific support, including carers’ breaks, and identify how the chosen methods for supporting carers will help to meet key outcomes

Ask yourself

• Have you mapped your existing services to identify the cross over and overlap to identify who can deliver and support carers most effectively?
• Have you considered commissioning in partnership with the voluntary and community sector?
• Have you considered jointly commissioning carers services with others for example other CCG’s or Local Authorities/ Social Services?

Download this principle to track and measure your progress.  Also available to download as a MS Word document.