One of the concepts that has been flying around over the last 18 months is that of integrated neighbourhood teams, but nailing down exactly what they are is proving challenging. One of the most popular search terms on my website is “what is an integrated neighbourhood team?”, so if you’re not sure what they are, you’re not alone!

The term first came to the fore when integrated neighbourhood teams (INTs) were made the centrepiece of the Fuller Report.  The report says,

“At the heart of the new vision for integrating primary care is bringing together previously siloed teams and professionals to do things differently to improve patient care for whole populations. This is usually most powerful in neighbourhoods of 30-50,000, where teams from across primary care networks (PCNs), wider primary care providers, secondary care teams, social care teams, and domiciliary and care staff can work together to share resources and information and form multidisciplinary teams (MDTs) dedicated to improving the health and wellbeing of a local community and tackling health inequalities.” p6

The main problems about INTs have revolved around trying to pin down exactly what they would do, who would lead them, where they would be based and what they mean for existing teams (including PCNs). While general practice is certainly not clear on this, it’s also true that in the vast majority of areas, neither are the local ICBs. So, we’ve ended up in this strange situation where everyone is trying to “implement Fuller” and “create integrated neighbourhood teams” without anyone really knowing what they are.

What do you do, then, when faced with such uncertainty? The best place to start is to look at some concrete examples of where INTs have been put in place – i.e., where providing joined-up care from across a multidisciplinary team of professionals spanning organisational boundaries is taking place. It seems that the tangible examples of working in this way are based around specific cohorts of patients, e.g., those with frailty, children, those with specific long-term conditions and so on. By thinking in this way, some areas have started to be able to provide much more joined-up care to these patient groups.

A great example of this way of working is featured in this month’s podcast. I spoke to Lisa Davies and Lucy Jones from the Hereford Medical Group (HMG), a single practice PCN based in Hereford, and in the podcast, they share a brilliant example of how they’ve started to join up the care, and the professionals delivering that care, for residents in local care homes.

They discuss how they held a conference on “Living Well in Later Life” for all the professionals who were delivering care in local care homes. Not only were they able to provide some high-quality educational input but they were able to bring the teams together and develop the personal connections that are key to making integrated team working a reality.

Maybe next year more clarity will emerge as to exactly what an INT is supposed to be, but in the meantime, my recommendation is to start with examples like this one – where professionals have come together to link up what they do and provide practical solutions.