Integrating care

Working to join up health and social care

We want everyone with dementia to have co-ordinated services that work together in a common sense way. I joined the Society last August to support our integration project, helping to make sure dementia is prioritised in NHS plans to make health and social care in England more 'joined up'.

This becomes more important as increasing numbers of people need support from many different services, all of which are under pressure financially.

'On average, people affected by dementia have to navigate 20 different services to get essential care.'

There have been various ideas about how to do this, and one promising approach is to use local sustainability and transformation partnerships (STPs). The NHS has set up 44 STPs to cover the whole of England. They aim to deliver services that provide joined-up care in ways that work best for their local populations.

On average, people affected by dementia have to navigate 20 different services to get essential care. 

STPs could simplify this, bringing different professionals together so that people with dementia get the dedicated support they deserve.

We are working with STPs across England to ensure that they appoint dementia champions and involve people with the condition in making their plans. We are also reminding STPs that arent doing enough why they need to make dementia a priority.

At the moment, many STPs are asking the public for feedback on their plans. This could be in writing or in person, and its vital that people affected by dementia have their say

Next steps

• Contact us to help make sure your local STP is on track.