South Somerset Symphony Programme – Leading the way in new models of care
The national new care models programme brings together local health and care systems as vanguards to radically redesign care for the local populations they serve. South Somerset Symphony Programme (@Symphonyproj) are one of the vanguards showcasing areas of their work at this week’s annual NHS Providers conference and Jeremy Martin explains how they have been leading the way.
Developing new models of care within south Somerset as an integrated primary and acute care system vanguard is an exciting place to be at the moment. Balancing the challenges that implementing change can bring, against the exciting possibilities that innovation can offer.
For us, being a vanguard is a unique opportunity to help shape and develop a new way of delivering our healthcare services for patients across the county. 16 out of 19 GP practices in south Somerset are now running with our enhanced primary care model and improving access to care, treatment and advice for patients with the greatest need. We are already taking positive steps towards creating the sustainable and efficient healthcare service that patients and communities need.
By building and strengthening relationships with our primary care colleagues, we are taking a joint approach to designing, developing and continually refining our model to ensure that we can meet the needs of patients and healthcare professionals, both now and into the future.
The launch of the integrated primary and acute care system (PACS) framework was a significant positive step to recognising the opportunities created by both clinical and organisational collaboration between primary and secondary care, and reinforces the work already taking place in south Somerset.
Through vanguard funding, we have been able to develop our enhanced primary care model. This model focusses on prevention and education, as well as providing the specialist care that our patients with the most complex long-term health conditions need.
Extended healthcare teams work to support the GP in primary care with nurse practitioners and health coaches taking a central role in providing support, treatment and advice for patients. In addition, a range of specialist healthcare treatments and services are being developed to be delivered in the patient’s own GP practice, rather than the traditional hospital environment, supported by a specialist complex care team.
Transforming care services doesn’t happen overnight, the positive progress we are making in the Symphony Programme is a result of strong partnership working between primary and secondary care over an extended period of time and a shared vision to create an efficient and sustainable healthcare service – ultimately putting more resources back into primary care. New models of care, including the work of vanguards like ours, will be key to the delivery of sustainability and transformation plans which are being developed across the country.
The NHS Providers event is an opportunity to share our learning, celebrate success and be encouraged by the experiences of other healthcare professionals. It is so inspiring to hear about the ideas and progress of others; in our shared quest to find new innovative ways to meet the challenges we all face.
We are looking forward to meeting colleagues and sharing how our journey to integrate primary secondary care services in south Somerset has evolved so far and you can find us on the NHS England stand on Wednesday 30 November.
Jeremy Martin
Jeremy is the Programme Director for the Symphony Programme, which is introducing new integrated models of care for the 150,000 population of South Somerset through collaboration between primary care, NHS organisations, the local authority and voluntary sector. In the four years of the programme’s life it has expanded from a project focused on people with the most complex needs, to include the health and social care needs of the whole population. It is one of the nine PACS Vanguard sites.
Prior to becoming Programme Director, Jeremy was Director of Planning and Performance at Yeovil Hospital, where he led on strategy, planning, performance, communications, IT and corporate governance.
Through his career Jeremy has held a wide variety of roles in NHS organisations and the Department of Health in Somerset and London, including policy development, commissioning, operational management, business development, service improvement and performance management.