The Coalition for Collaborative Care (C4CC) formally launched today at the Future of Health Conference – a major event in the Health calendar – and addressed this year by NHS England’s Chief Executive, Simon Stevens, following recent publication of the NHS Five Year Forward View.

We want this launch to light the blue touch paper for big changes in how people with long term conditions and professionals work together to produce better lives.

We have launched our Vision for the Future, but of course the future has to start now. Over the past couple of months I’ve met with many health professionals and many people with long term conditions.

I think there is a mutual recognition of great potential for new and better ways that people’s expertise can come together for improved outcomes. But this is accompanied by frustration that the promising practice that can be seen in patches around the country is not quickly becoming mainstream.

C4CC wants to work with those determined to move person-centred collaborative care from the margins to the centre of practice and experience. How will we do this? Our approach might be summed up as “Supporting the doers, changing the conditions”.

Changing the conditions will involve attention to workforce development, providing powerful evidence and pulling the system levers to drive positive change in practice. This will be of vital importance in achieving the kind of paradigm shift we are looking for – but it won’t be enough. The bottom line is that the health and care workforce and the people who use the health and care system will increasingly need to change their ways of working and interacting so that they can get the win-wins that person centred approaches can provide.

People will need help to do this and C4CC aims to be an important part of that help. We want to support the building of a powerful movement for change among both practitioners and people living with long term conditions and give this movement the tools, connections and support it needs to help fully realise the potential for person centred care and support.

We know that this can’t be simply mandated by policymakers or system leaders, it has to be built by the people delivering and using health and care services. That is why the partners and members of C4CC will be people and organisations who don’t represent a single part of the system but bring together a wide coalition that can have impact in all key areas and at all levels – with people living with long-term conditions at the heart, energising positive change.

We will be taking a “depth and breadth” approach to supporting the “doers”. As well as playing an important part in key developments that will shape the future of health – like the Integrated Personal Commissioning Programme – we will be looking for all opportunities to get significant support targeted to those local systems showing clear commitment to transform practice and to the people with long term conditions contributing to this. Sometimes this will involve partners of the Coalition taking direct initiatives, alone or in partnership with others with C4CC, at other times we will aim to direct resources and support emerging from NHSE and other programmes.

At a breadth level we want to support members to become better informed, to link together for support and develop their ability to have positive local impact. We will be consulting members on how best to do this but we expect to support in various ways including through provision of targeted information and tools, establishment of networks and the identification and activation of champions nationally and locally.

We are confident that the unique nature of our coalition – bringing key organisations and people from across the system and with lived experience into the room together with a clear focus and purpose – models the change we are trying to make.

We believe we can have a real impact. But for deep, large scale change to happen we need all those who believe there is real potential for person centred collaborative care to transform people’s experience and use resources better to join us on this journey.