If you are a Voluntary, community or Social Enterprise organisation then this website is your resource centre for everything that relates to the Integrated Care System or ICS. The website is brokered by Voluntary Impact Northamptonshire and supported by the Lottery Community Fund as part of its Health Equality Grant Programme, known locally as Connect Northamptonshire.The Integrated Care System is one System but operates across two sovereign Local Authorities in West and North Northamptonshire. There may be subtle differences to the way in which the ICS operates across these two areas and therefore this website has both a West Section and a North Section, enabling VCSE organisations to effectively navigate into the area in which they predominantly work. This website will be updated regularly as the Northamptonshire ICS journey develops. We hope you enjoy its content. If you feel it can be improved, please contact VIN at info@voluntaryimpact.org.uk, placing ICS in the header title.
Integrated care systems (ICSs) are partnerships of organisations that come together to plan and deliver joined up health and care services, in order to improve the lives of people who live and work in their area.
Following several years of locally led development, recommendations of NHS England and the passage of the Health and Care Act (2022), 42 ICSs were established across England on a statutory basis on the 1st of July 2022. Northamptonshire is one of these.
A statutory committee jointly formed between the NHS integrated care board and all upper-tier local authorities that fall within the ICS area. The ICP will bring together a broad alliance of partners concerned with improving the care, health, and wellbeing of the population, with membership determined locally. The ICP is responsible for producing an integrated care strategy on how to meet the health and wellbeing needs of the population in the ICS area.
A statutory NHS organisation responsible for developing a plan for meeting the health needs of the population, managing the NHS budget, and arranging for the provision of health services in the ICS area. The establishment of ICBs resulted in clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) being closed.
Local authorities in the ICS area are responsible for social care and public health functions, in addition to other vital services for local people and businesses. Both North and West Northamptonshire have recruited Directors of Place to oversee the role of the authority within the ICS.
Within each ICS, place-based partnerships will lead the detailed design and delivery of integrated services across their localities and neighbourhoods. The partnerships will involve the NHS, local councils, community and voluntary organisations, residents, people who use services, their carers and representatives and other community partners with a role in supporting the health and wellbeing of the population. Placed based delivery will take place through the concept of Local Area Partnerships (LAPS) and there will be 9 in West Northamptonshire and 7 in North Northamptonshire. Population sizes within LAPS vary but generally they will deliver to population sizes of between 30,000 and 50,000.
Provider collaboratives will bring providers together to achieve the benefits of working at scale across multiple places and one or more ICSs, to improve quality, efficiency and outcomes and address unwarranted variation and inequalities in access and experience across different providers. In Northamptonshire there are 4 Clinical priorities. These are:
These clinical priorities may change over time.
The VCSE sector is an important part of any ICS. The sector understands communities, delivers services and adds value to statutory provision. It is an imperative of any ICS system that the sector is embedding into its thoughts, actions, and programmes. Both the Health and Wellbeing Boards (North and West) endorsed this high-level Memorandum of Understanding between the Sector and the System in September of 2022. The Northamptonshire MOU can be seen here.