Dr Robin Miller, Deputy Director of HSMC, has co-authored a report Horizontal or Vertical: Which way to integrate? Approaches to community services integration and consequences for emergency hospital activity with Steven Wyatt and Peter Spilsbury from The Strategy Unit, hosted by Midlands and Lancashire Commissioning Support Unit.
The report considers the impact of the Transforming Community Services policy on the level and growth in emergency hospital use in older people and contemplates the wider implications for the NHS as it develops new models of care and integrated care systems.
The Transforming Community Services policy required a complete break of commissioner and provider functions within Primary Care Trusts. The series of options available - vertically integrate with an acute trust, horizontally integrate with a mental health trust, or set up a stand-alone community trust or Community Interest Company - are still relevant today as the NHS considers how best to ensure collaboration between acute and community services.
