The President of the National Association Primary Care preview his session at Expo 2017 on Accountable Care Systems and the benefits they could bring:

The challenges facing the provision of health and care services with increasing need and expectation in the 21^st century are global.

However, the delivery of care varies greatly in the differing health and social care economies of the world.

There are consistencies and well-documented pressures on health and care provision within the OECD member countries, and many health economies are attempting to learn from others with comparable challenges.

Currently many comparisons are being made between accountable care organisations in the USA and the development of accountable care systems within the NHS in England.

An accountable care system can have variable ways of delivering care through different organisational models and structures. Indeed, whilst accountable care organisations have similar principles of delivery and focus on outcomes, they can organisationally be significantly different.

The Next Steps on the Five Year Forward View, published in March, has signalled the intention for the NHS to develop accountable care systems. In June this year, nine areas in England were identified to be at the forefront of this nationwide action, with the ambition for better integration of health and social care through closer alignment of commissioning care and its provision.

It marks a fresh attempt is to break down the barriers between GPs and hospitals, physical and mental healthcare, social care and the NHS by bringing together local NHS organisations, often in partnership with social care services and the voluntary sector.

The detail about how this will be delivered remains unclear but the aim is to build on the learning from and early results of NHS England’s new care model ‘vanguards’, and the more recently launched Primary Care Home programme, which in itself now covers nearly 8 million people in England.

Join our session on Monday 11 September at 2pm at the Innovate main stage for ‘Strengthening the Role of Primary Care Internationally’ (sponsored by MSD).

In this session panel speakers will explore the evidence and implementation of accountable care systems and organisations, from the inception in the USA to international spread, and the benefits that may be realised within the NHS in England.