An exploration of neighbourhood team members experiences of the transition from traditional health and social care teams to integrated care systems, within a defined health and social care economy
The UK is undergoing changes in the demographics and epidemiology of the population. To tackle this, successive UK governments have introduced policies focused on transforming health and social care from its traditional forms into integrated care systems. Previous research has demonstrated that people are essential in the transformation process which is often complex and requires structural, practical, and cultural change. Despite this focus, there has been a lack of frontline research on the real-time experiences of practitioners tasked with making integration real from the outset.This study attempts to address this gap. It presents a faithful representation of the experiences of two teams, one from health, one from social work, as they moved through the initial stages of integration. The study uses an adapted institutional ethnographic approach (Smith, 2005), which involved observing two teams as they came together to form an integrated neighbourhood team over a nine-month period. The use of this approach ensured that the reporting of the team’s experience was from their perspectives and considered the wider external factors that influenced those experiences.The analysis of the findings identifies several key factors in how teams experience integration that could influence future policy. These areas included: the imperative of a local narrative for integration; the place of hope and hopefulness in uniting teams; the importance of ‘Bottom-up’ action; the imperative of joint leadership. The process of integration was not a linear one but one where teams move through a process of converging and separating from each other. Based on the findings a framework has been developed to assist organisations in the development of integrated teams.
Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations