The Fuller Stocktake
In November 2021, former NHS Surrey Heartlands Chief Executive, Professor Claire Fuller, was asked by NHS England Chief Executive, Amanda Pritchard, to lead a review into integrated primary care – looking at what’s working well, why it’s working well and how the NHS can accelerate the implementation of integrated primary care (including general practice, community pharmacy, dentistry and optometry) across systems.
The result of the review was ‘The Fuller Stocktake’ which was published by NHS England on 26th May 2022. This sets out a vision to improve access, experience and outcomes for people and communities, the recommendations from which form a key part of our strategy and plans going forward.
These recommendations centre around three essential areas:
- Streamlining access to care and advice for people who get ill but only use health services infrequently, providing them with much more choice about how they access care and ensuring care is always available in their community when they need it
- Providing more proactive, personalised care with support from a multidisciplinary team of professionals to people with more complex needs, including, but not limited to, those with multiple long-term conditions
- Helping people to stay well for longer as part of a more ambitious and joined-up approach to prevention.
At the same time, challenging systems to be bold and innovative in creating ‘both the conditions to enable locally led change and the supporting infrastructure to implement it’.
As part of the review, the team engaged with almost 1,000 people through workstreams, roundtables and one-to-one meetings, alongside over 12,000 individual visits to a dedicated engagement platform.
The formal establishment of Integrated Care Systems could not be more timely as a vehicle for collaboration, and this report has signalled the need for the primary care voice and leadership to be at the heart of local and national priorities. The report also sets out a requirement for additional support from Government and NHS England, targeted most of all at fixing workforce supply, estates, and digital infrastructure.
This is just the beginning of the journey. Success in delivering the ambitions lies in releasing the potential of our health and care workforce, our vibrant voluntary and community sector and the people in our communities to work with the same energy and spirit of innovation in implementing this plan as they have in helping us to design it.
Delivering The Fuller Stocktake in Surrey Heartlands
Listen to Dr Pramit Patel, Senior Responsible Officer for the Stocktake delivery, describe our approach in a presentation given to the NHS Surrey Heartlands Board on 2nd November 2022.