Building real-time integration into an ICS

Challenge

NHS Sussex Health and Care is an Integrated Care System (ICS) which supports over 1.8 million people across the county. 

The Sussex health and care system is made up of three local authorities, seven NHS providers, 156 GP practices and over 300 pharmacies. Not to mention the multiple voluntary, community and social enterprise partners involved in providing health and care services.

Most of these organisations have their own separate systems to record and manage patient (and citizen) data. To make things even more complex; in many care settings, important clinical information about each patient is recorded in its own unique (and hard to share) structure.  

This all increases clinical risk and leaves patients stuck in hospitals rather than being cared for in the most effective and suitable place. Huge costs in time and resources are incurred trying to grapple with this problem and important working relationships are strained and undermined. 

NHS Sussex set up an ambitious overarching digital programme called ‘Our Care Connected (OCC)’ to address these issues. Its wider goal is to bring data and technology together to provide better services for people. 

We partnered with Sussex ICS to help it build strong relationships, embed new ways of working and create a joint vision and strategy to deliver its ambitious OCC Programme.

Approach 

Identifying challenges

We began by working with Sussex ICS to co-host engagement sessions to understand the pain points faced by services and stakeholders. This involved meetings with key representatives across Sussex, including Councils, Trusts, GPs, staff and patients. We also reviewed previous digital projects that had taken place to identify areas for improvement and learn from past experiences.

Based on this research, we found that one of the main challenges people faced was around ways of working. Communication was disjointed and largely email-based, while the lack of access to real-time information created a breakdown of understanding around goals, priorities and timelines.

A key success factor was to put NHS Sussex patients and staff at the centre of this vital work. 

Becoming agile and user centred

With the challenges identified, we implemented a strategy with the ICS to help better understand its needs and embrace new approaches to projects, including:

• Supporting the development of a roadmap for the OCC Programme, outlining objectives, milestones, and deliverables. We then organised regular meetings and workshops to communicate this and secure buy-in from the multiple Trusts.

• Implementing agile ways of working, shifting towards iterative development cycles, incremental value delivery, and establishing agile practices like sprint planning and retrospectives to build transparency and collaboration.

• Integrating user centred design (UCD) principles into the development process. We worked with service users and stakeholders through design thinking workshops and feedback loops to ensure that new solutions met end users' needs and expectations.

• The above UCD research was used to rethink and map patient data needs across the whole system. Making the complex task of data integration streamlined and focused.

We coached and mentored people across services throughout this process. Through training, workshops, and one-on-one sessions, we helped build confidence and skills across teams. We also promoted knowledge-sharing and collaboration to create a culture of continuous learning and improvement.

Impact 

Our partnership with Sussex ICS has already produced benefits for services and the OCC Programme. One of these was launching the Transfer of Care Hub Dashboard (ToCH Dashboard), a key part of the programme. It enables multi-disciplinary teams to coordinate care and support for patients by streamlining discharge processes and providing timely access to patient data. The hub was developed using the techniques we instilled and now means services across Sussex can release patients from hospitals to social care faster, easing pressure on resources, freeing up space for those in need and improving patient experiences. 

Stakeholders, teams and staff reported a notable improvement in collaboration and communication. Through open channels and dialogue, alignment between trusts and programme objectives increased, smoothing information sharing and decision-making processes.

The introduction of agile ways of working has also significantly streamlined project delivery. Regular sprint cycles ensured continuous progress and adaptation, while prioritisation and clear roadmaps helped to keep teams aligned on programme goals. There was also an improvement in user experience. By prioritising user-centred design principles, technology solutions better meet the needs of clinical and end-users.