July 25, 2014 11.53 am This story is over 122 months old

New phase added to Lincolnshire healthcare project

Reassurance: A Lincolnshire healthcare team working on a new care project have added a new phase after speaking to staff and residents.
Photo: Fotolia

After public consultation, the board behind the Lincolnshire Health and Care programme (LHAC) has added a new phase to its health and care project.

The board, made up of senior staff from all 11 major providers and commissioners of health and care in Lincolnshire, will discuss the new phase on August 6.

This also means the full public consultation due in September will now be moved back to 2015.

The LHAC aims to roll out a number of pilots in order to improve care for residents, from the creation of neighbourhood teams, more operations done closer to patients’ homes and a network of local urgent care centres to deal with minor injuries.

This were due to launched as part of the evidence gathering phase of the overall Lincolnshire Health and Care programme later this year.

After discussions with 5,000 staff, patients, residents, and clinicians on its Lincolnshire Health and Care programme, the LHAC found it needed to added another early phase to the project.

The most common query was the need for LHAC to provide evidence the the programme would provide excellent quality and properly integrated services.

The programme uses experiences and advice from top front-line health and care professionals across the world, but presently LHAC would be the first to trail a project of this kind.

Therefore, the LHAC will now add a phase where the elements of the blueprint are tested in order to track success and deal with issues before the full roll-out of the programme goes ahead.

LHAC board chairman Dr Tony Hill said: “We understand that what we are proposing is a radical approach but we also realise that innovation is needed.

“We simply cannot continue to run the services we have in the way we do. It is not right for patients and it is not sustainable.

“The people of Lincolnshire, understandably, want to see some evidence that these proposals can work so we have decided to respond positively to that.

“However it is important to understand that no full scale changes of the health and care system will be permanently put in place until the whole of Lincolnshire has been given the opportunity to have their say and we will continue our conversations with people across the county in the interim.”