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Integrating care and transforming community services: what works? where next? (Policy paper 5)

The Health Services Management Centre at the University of Birmingham organised a seminar in June 2009 bringing together experts from the US and the UK.

The seminar focused on the evidence for integration; the current policy context in the NHS in England; case studies of integration from different parts of the country; and the contribution of the independent sector.

This report summarises the presentations made at the seminar and draws out the implications for policy and practice.

GP budget holding: lessons from across the pond and from the NHS (Policy paper 7)

Paper which draws on evidence from the US as well as on previous experience in the NHS of GP commissioning in different forms, to identify lessons for policy makers as they take this policy forward.

While the government is on the right lines in promoting GP budget holding, the paper suggests that there is a need for caution in promoting budget holding as a universal solution without regard to the capabilities of practices to manage a budget and the safeguards that need to be put in place to avoid the downside risks.

The vanguard of integration or a lost tribe?: care trusts ten years on (Policy paper 10)

The description of care trusts as either the ‘vanguard’ of integrated organisations or a ‘lost tribe’ was made by the former Chief Executive of a care trust at an HSMC learning event soon after their creation. It nicely captures the mixed views of care trusts as either the cutting edge of integration between health and social care or as a band of individuals and organisations that have happened upon a clumsy structural solution as a way of shielding themselves from other agendas.