Interim guidance on our approach to assessing integrated care systems

Our new single assessment framework is based on a set of quality statements. They are arranged under topic areas and describe what good care looks like.

To develop the quality statements, we reviewed our existing assessment frameworks as well as using aspects of the Making It Real framework. Making It Real was co-produced by Think Local Act Personal (TLAP) with a range of partners and people with lived experience of using health and care services. It is a framework for how to provide personalised care and support aimed at people working in health, care, housing, and people who use services. It contains a jargon-free set of personalised principles that focus on what matters to people.

Quality statements are written in the style of ‘We’ statements from a provider, local authority and integrated care system perspective, to help them understand what we expect of them. They are the commitments that providers, commissioners and system leaders should live up to in order to deliver truly person-centred care and support. They also help to provide a benchmark of what good care looks like by linking to the relevant best practice standards and guidance.

Our assessment framework will also help people understand what a good experience of care looks and feels like by linking it with ‘I statements’ from TLAP’s Making It Real framework. We will use these statements to support us in gathering and assessing evidence under the People’s experience evidence category.

Making people’s voices prominent in our single assessment framework helps to focus the whole health and social care system on people as we increasingly work across the boundaries of health and care, at an integrated care system and national system level.

Safety through learning is a key theme in our strategy. We have reflected this in the quality statements to set our expectations for how services and providers need to work together, and within systems, to plan and deliver safe, person-centred care. We will assess the extent to which people can influence the planning and prioritisation of safe care and be truly involved as equal partners to transform safety and to ensure that human rights are upheld. We will also assess how leaders foster a culture of openness and learning to improve safety for people.

Driving improvement is also a key theme in our strategy. Our assessments of systems will transform how we bring together a view of quality across a local area, putting people at the centre and helping to drive improvement in health and care.