Future of community services in Sutton

NHS Sutton Clinical Commissioning Group’s Governing Body has agreed to directly award an interim, transitional contract for Sutton Community Services to the Sutton Health and Care Provider Alliance (with Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust hosting the contract) for a period of one plus one years (April 2019 to March 2021).

Dr Jeff Croucher, Sutton GP and Clinical Chair of NHS Sutton Clinical Commissioning Group, said “We want to reassure local people that they will not see any changes to their local services or the staff who provide them. This is a change to the management and hosting of the services - the way the staff care for patients day to day will stay the same.”

NHS Sutton CCG and Sutton Council would like to thank The Royal Marsden for the good quality community services they have provided to local people in Sutton for the past eight years. The Royal Marsden is, rightly, immensely proud of Sutton Community Services and the improvements in quality and performance staff have achieved, as evidenced by patient feedback and national awards, in both Health Visiting and Service Innovation. However, we all believe that Sutton’s community services should now be hosted by a partner in the Sutton Health and Care Provider Alliance (SHC Alliance) rather than a provider of specialist cancer care.

The SHC Alliance was formed so that local health and care providers can work together to deliver high quality health and social care for Sutton residents.  Care will be co-ordinated around the individual’s needs and not the organisations providing the care.

The SHC Alliance is already starting to deliver innovative services in Sutton that will provide joined-up care.  The first of these is Sutton Health and Care at Home which went live in April.

The award of the interim transitional contract for Sutton’s community services will allow time for Alliance partners to focus on further developing the Sutton Health and Care services.

It is also very important that our much valued and highly skilled staff across the Alliance have the opportunity to help co-design new ways of working together to improve how our community services are delivered without being hampered by the uncertainty of organisational change.

Following last week's local elections, the newly elected Council in Sutton will be considering the future of the children's services it commissions. The Council is keen to conduct a joint review of children's services with partners and to put interim arrangements in place which will maximise the potential for local professionals to co-design and integrate Health Visiting and School Nursing with other services such as Children's Centres and Early Help. The Council will be in a position to make a further announcement on its children's community services contract later on this summer.

NHS Sutton Clinical Commissioning Group

London Borough of Sutton

Epsom & St Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust

The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust

Notes:

The Sutton Health and Care Provider Alliance partners are:

• London Borough of Sutton
• Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust
•  SW London & St Georges Mental Health NHS Trust
•  Sutton GP Services

The Alliance is also supported by The Royal Marsden Hospital and local voluntary sector partners such as Healthwatch Sutton and Community Action Sutton.

Sutton Health and Care

During 2017/18, we worked collaboratively with health and care partners in Sutton to develop an ambitious, new service designed to provide the best care for local people with complex health and care needs.

Building on the success of Sutton Homes of Care (our Care Homes Vanguard), and working with the London Borough of Sutton, Epsom and St Helier, the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, South West London and St Georges and Sutton GP Services, we have developed a single vision, shared objectives and a specialist, multidisciplinary “one team” approach to delivering a fully integrated service.  This is known as Sutton Health and Care(SHC).

People will see a single service not the individual organisations, information will be shared so that people only need to tell their story once and care will be co-ordinated around the needs of the person and those who are important to them, not the organisations providing care.

The SHC service will encompass all elements of care - prevention, proactive/planned care and reactive/crisis care.  As much care as possible will take place at home and in the community with the aim of supporting people in their homes to be independent and healthy for as long as possible.  Importantly, individual patients, their carers and their families, will be fully involved in decision-making about their care and in helping develop their own health and care plans.

The first phase of service delivery, Sutton Health and Care at Home was launched in April 2018.