Traditionally, healthcare has often been delivered in a fragmented manner, which has been based on a clear separation between health and social care services. This is probably not the best way of delivering a good service as both usually go hand in hand; so separating them makes not much sense.  

But this is about to change. By 2018, Lewisham will have joined up and coordinated health and social care services for all adults. This project is called the Adult Integrated Care programme and it will mean important changes. As it has been said before, health and social care services will get joined up with a view to find the ways between services and support more easily, with a quicker response to everybody’s needs.  

Another interesting change is that sharing information between services will become easier (in other words, you will only have to tell you story once). In time terms, the aim is to deliver 7-day services and make them accessible and quick to respond to you when you need them. Financially, this plan will try to reduce duplication and improve value for money.  

Lastly, according to the Lewisham Council website, “the focus of the programme is to explore ways to support people to help themselves, prevent unnecessary admissions to hospital and develop more of the services that people want in their local communities”. What do you think about this programme? Do you think that this view will improve the quality of the services?