As part of your SSDP, review your existing services. This will involve mapping the distribution of medical resources, arranging consultation events and generally developing a good understanding of current capacity and delivery patterns.
During this process it is also important to reflect on changing roles of all members of primary and community care teams. This process should be led by the PCT with support from their professional advisers such as the project architect and project manager.
Three practical steps are normally taken in reviewing existing patterns of service integration:
Mapping the distribution of medical resources
Collate existing information about the distribution of staff resources across the locality. This may involve using information from the PCT or, where the PCT commissions community services, information from the community trust. Information on the number, grade and location of district nurses and health visitors, together with the number of practice doctors and staff employed by each practice should be collected. The information should be used to show the distribution of staff resources by locality and practice, including the number of whole time equivalents per 1000 population. Staff survey
Before the PCT can move towards more integrated working, it needs to understand how staff resources are distributed along with the terms and conditions under which staff are employed, the roles they are performing, and have some idea of their existing and ideal space requirements. To gather this information, a short postal questionnaire could be sent to all staff. The details of the survey should be agreed locally but may gather information on the following:
Although information on these topics in relation to some staff will be available centrally (for example from PCT or community trust managers), it is good practice to survey all staff to ensure that everyone has an equal chance to contribute towards the planning process.
Planning workshop
Bring together key staff from the PCT, community trust and local authority for a day or half-day workshop to:
The main outputs from the workshop should form a common vision of how the newly integrated teams could work in the premises that are being developed. They should also help to encourage a higher degree of staff ownership for the potential change. Feedback and review
Once steps 1 to 3 have been completed it is important to ensure that the information being used for planning purposes is kept up to date, as any local health economy is dynamic. There are a number of ways of ensuring this happens, for example holding regular project group meetings and circulating planning documents to managers and others involved in a particular premises project. It is also good practice to set up a web site for particular projects, which is open to public scrutiny and comment. Documents placed on this site could include proposed plans for new schemes, minutes of design group and other project meetings, and copies of any newsletters and similar documents that may be circulating in existing health facilities and offices. This will encourage both the public and staff to look at the web site and comment (via email or named point of contact) about any of the plans being made.