Partnership working

People’s needs are often complex and require support and interventions from a range of organisations. Therefore, services need to be integrated and built on partnership working utilising multi-disciplinary teams and where feasible single points of access. This approach needs to be developed at all levels – quite simply, care and health services are a whole system and if one part of the system is not working then the system as a whole isn’t and the people that suffer are the residents of Birmingham.

For commissioners, working as partners can deliver better quality services that are more integrated and better value. At locality level, trust needs to be developed between professionals such as district nurses and social workers so that packages of care and support can be flexed without reassessment from social care staff and there need to be more joint visits and assessments.

In order to deliver this element of the strategy, the Council and its partners need to work as a whole system and need to support each other to achieve their separate and joint goals. In some areas care and health services need to be open to changes in processes and to investing in areas to support their partners and the system as a whole. Care and health partners need to embrace locality working and invest their resources in working successfully in local areas, developing community assets and the means for accessing them.