Service transformation in action in Hull

Hull’s £9.5m Jean Bishop Integrated Care Centre is a star of the country’s LIFT portfolio.

Built in 2018, the facility was constructed to provide an innovative way to care for older people in the community and improve outcomes for people living with frailty, transforming service delivery.

The first of its kind in the UK, the building is designed to host a multi-disciplinary team of clinicians, physiotherapists, social workers, voluntary service workers and other specialists who work together to produce a care plan to address the needs of the patient and ensure they can stay as healthy as possible for longer.

Research has shown that this sort of integrated ‘health and social care MOT’ approach is proven to make people feel both psychologically and physically better, and reduces hospital admissions and unnecessary medications. The Jean Bishop ICC has contributed to a 13.6% reduction in emergency hospital attendances for patients aged over 80, and over 50% reduction in emergency department attendances for ‘frequent flyers’, also saving an average of £100 per patient on drug costs per year. This shows that the ICC not only contributes to individual patient health outcomes, but also reduces the pressure on acute health services and the overall NHS budget.

Dr Dan Harman, Consultant Community Geriatrician at the ICC, said: “We were acutely aware that older people across Hull were having relatively poor healthcare outcomes, often being cared for in the wrong place or at the wrong time, and I think that was a problem that was replicated up and down the country.

“We saw the opportunity to try something very different in Hull, focusing on respecting what matters to the person and their choice around preferred place of care. This involved developing a community frailty team delivering specialist care closer to home.

“Our patient feedback and improvement in system outcomes demonstrates that by integrating services closer to home, we can make such a difference to the lives of older people.”