Citizens as Active Participants in Integrated Care: Challenging the Field’s Dominant Paradigms

Policy makers, practitioners and academics often claim that care users and other citizens should be ‘at the center’ of care integration pursuits. Nonetheless, the field of integrated care tends to approach these constituents as passive recipients of professional and managerial efforts. This paper critically reflects on this discrepancy, which, it contend, indicates both a key objective and an ongoing challenge of care integration;  the need to reconcile the professional, organizational and institutional frameworks by which care work is structured with  the diversity and diffuseness that is inherent to pursuits of active user and citizen participation. 

20th International Conference on Integrated Care (ICIC20)

In light of the current COVID-19 pandemic and the travel restrictions in place, we regretfully inform you that the 20th International Conference on Integrated Care in Croatia, scheduled for 27 – 29 April 2020, cannot go ahead as planned. The conference has NOT been cancelled and will take place later this year when we understand when attendees will be in a better position to participate. IFIC are currently working with our hosts on an alternative solution and will be making an announcement in the comings weeks. We are mindful of those working at the frontline and in the management of health and care systems right now and they must be our first priority. We are committed to delivering the conference and we appreciate your patience whilst we work on finalising details. (International Foundation for Integrated Care (IFIC)).

The 20th International Conference on Integrated Care (ICIC20) will take place in Sibenik, Croatia ...

Sharing responsibility: municipal health professionals’ approaches to goal setting with older patients with multi-morbidity – a grounded theory study

Recent health policy promoting integrated care emphasizes to increase patients’ health, experience of quality of care and reduce care utilization. Thus, health service delivery should be co-produced by health professionals and individual patients with multiple diseases and complex needs. Collaborative goal setting is a new procedure for older patients with multi-morbidity. The aim is to explore municipal health professionals’ experiences of collaborative goal setting with patients with multi-morbidity aged 80 and above.

The Leadership of Co-Production in Health and Social Care Integration in Scotland: A Qualitative Study

The involvement of citizens in the production and creation of public services has become a central tenet for administrations internationally. In Scotland, co-production has underpinned the integration of health and social care via the Public Bodies (Joint Working) (Scotland) Act 2014. We report on a qualitative study that examined the experiences and perspectives of local and national leaders in Scotland on undertaking and sustaining co-production in public services. By adopting a meso and macro perspective, we interviewed senior planning officers from eight health and social care partnership areas in Scotland and key actors in national agencies. The findings suggest that an overly complex Scottish governance landscape undermines the sustainability of co-production efforts. As part of a COVID-19 recovery, both the implementation of meaningful co-production and coordinated leadership for health and social care in Scotland need to be addressed, as should the development of evaluation capacities of those working across health ...

Citizen Leadership & Integrated Care Report

Integrated care is at its heart about health, social care and wider services being better coordinated around people, families, and communities. This requires those who plan, design, and deliver services to understand what is important to people on an individual and collective basis. People’s circumstances and aspirations may change with their health conditions and social situations and through new challenges arising in wider society. It is therefore important that opportunities to influence and co-produce services are not a one-off exercise, but rather are ongoing and responsive to people’s interests and perspectives.

Professor Robin Miller and Dr Caroline Jackson (Social Care theme) have been collaborating with research partners in Europe and Canada to understand how people with lived experience of health and/or social care can influence the development of integrated care.

The first report from the research is now available for download: Citizen Leadership & Integrated Care Report.