Winter Pressures 2022/23

On Friday 12 May 2023 over 70 leaders from across the Suffolk and North East Essex ICS attended an ICS Leaders Awayday to look at ICS System Learning from Winter Pressures 2022/23. The event included more than 20 speakers including frontline clinicians, patients and the public and leaders from across the NHS, social care, public health and the VCFSE sector.

A comprehensive report from the event has been produced and is now available below. This includes written accounts of each of the presentations, reflections following the day and also a summary of key points captured using the ‘Three Horizons Thinking’ model. The event explored a broad range of areas where action might be taken within the ICS using a data and experience driven approach to both mitigate short term pressures and ensure that to move to more viable long term solutions.

The event prompted a range of subsequent conversations and discussions including:

• Incorporation into the SNEE UEC One Plan led by the NHS ICB. This will have 8 workstreams each with an Executive level SRO and identified benefits, timelines and success measures.
• Subsequent reflections from some ICS leaders at Healthwatch, Suffolk Public Health and ESNEFT captured within the report
• Feedback into the WSFT recover plan specifically on strategic coherence for plans- both bottom up and top down, ensuring joint working between UCR services and frailty and ward process improvements.
• Further exploration of the concept of a mental health urgent care centre shared by EPUT from Basildon
• Suggested consideration of the report as part of planning for use of the Better Care Fund in Suffolk.

Wider partners also proposed that there should be:

• Focused work to ensure that admission avoidance is properly valued and quantified when making winter funding investment decisions and evaluating services/interventions
• More opportunity for non-NHS partners to contribute to winter plans and to apply for funding at an earlier stage.
• Clarity about how Alliances will be asked to act on learning from the event.
• Further work to strengthen and embed a culture of research and innovation in the ICS as proposed in the recent report from the Hewitt Review
• Involvement of more third sector organisations in discussions