New Care Models: Integrated Care Pioneers East and East Midlands

What is the pioneer Programme? 

Many health and care organisations around the country are working together to improve people’s health, wellbeing and experience of care. In 2013, national partners asked local areas (NHS and local government together) to express an interest in becoming pioneers to act as exemplars, demonstrating the use of ambitious and innovative approaches to efficiently deliver integrated care. Following an independent selection process, 14 pioneer sites across England were announced in November 2013.

The selection process was then repeated in the autumn of 2014 and January 2015 saw a second wave of pioneers – 11 areas all focused on improving the delivery of integrated, person-centred, coordinated care services. These additional members of the community have brought a further dimension to the shared learning and were  welcomed by the first wave pioneers 

The 25 integrated care pioneer sites (the pioneers) are developing and testing new and different ways of joining up health and social care services across England, utilising the expertise of the voluntary and community sector, with the aim of improving care, quality and effectiveness of services being provided.

The pioneer sites in the East Midlands and East of England are:

 Nottingham City

 Nottingham County

Southend on sea 

West Norfolk

National workstreams

As part of the  programme, a number of national workstreams have been established on areas of high priority and interest for pioneers. These workstreams bring together pioneers and the relevant national leads from organisations such as NHS England, to help design solutions and make progress along common themes essential to better integrated health and care.

You can find more about each workstream via the following links:

·         Developing patient centred care

·         Increasing community involvement

·         Workforce

·         Technology

·         Contractual models

·         Procurement

·         Payment arrangements

·         Infrastructure


Resources - New Care Models Pioneers 

Integrated Care Pioneers: One Year On

People helping people Year two of the pioneer programme describes the journey taken over the last year by the integrated care pioneers. The report describes the progress, challenges and lessons learnt across the pioneers. Also included within the report are pioneers’ stories which describe the core elements of their care models and showcase how these are impacting real people.


Other useful resource collections:

King’s Fund – Integrated Care: Commentary and resources focusing on the widespread adoption of integrated care to meet the needs of frail older people and others with complex health and social care needs.

Local Government Association – Integration and the Better Care Fund: The LGA works with councils to support, promote and improve local government.

Public Service Transformation Network: The role of the Transformation Network is to support and enable the transition to ‘better local services for people’ by developing, identifying and spreading evidence of what works.