UK sites to pilot global project

Four UK areas have been offered the opportunity to radically
overhaul their local health and social care systems as part of an
international improvement initiative.

Primary care trusts, NHS trusts, and social services departments
in Bradford, north and east Devon, London boroughs of Lambeth and
Southwark, and Norfolk and Norwich have been selected by the
Department of Health to take part in the Pursuing Perfection
project, alongside sites in 13 other countries.

Each of the four British sites will focus on at least two pilot
projects to test the feasibility of whole-system change. Likely
pilot areas include the systems for the care of patients with
chronic diseases, and “flow systems” around tackling delayed
discharge and waiting lists.

The four sites will receive £200,000 from government funds,
which must be matched locally. They will work over a two-year
period to achieve major improvements across health and social
care.

Speaking at the launch of the UK sites this week, project
director and president of the US Institute for Healthcare
Improvement Don Berwick said: “In Britain and the US there’s a gap
between what the health care system needs to be and what it is.
This is a call for change.”

Stephen Day, of the Broadland PCT, said the Norfolk and Norwich
project would require mobilisation of resources, a change in the
way the workforce was built and trained, and a change in the way
agencies and professionals worked together.