Transforming delivery of health and social care: rethinking systems integration

In 2013, the UK Government announced a major £3.8 billion healthcare initiative, the Better Care Fund. This funding was intended to be used within local health and care systems to drive closer integration, create new service efficiencies, support technological innovation and most importantly, improve outcomes for patients and people with care and support needs. The research described in this paper uses the lens of systems integration to investigate how health and social care delivery, through the Better Care initiative, is currently being transformed in a major UK city. An action research approach is being used to determine the key issues and challenges that need to be addressed if new models of integrated health and social care are to be successful. Early findings indicate that a systems or sociotechnical approach can facilitate a better understanding of the potential challenges for integrating health and social care information systems.