Patient Centered Care

Name: Elizabeth Sarjaent
Comments: I have spent the last ten years working across England with systems attempting to work in Partnership with other particularly Social Services to improve services for older people and other vulnerable adults.  THe perpetual reorganisations really get in the way of the relationship building necessary to build the partnerships on Trust.  To really change the way that we do things we have to remove organisational boundaries and focus on the persons needs and not do assessments in relation to existing services.  There are many perverse incentives in the current system and the continual focus on acute services means that we do not make the real changes needed to enable people to continue to live their lives rather than focus on their ageing and disability.  In this way there is emerging evidence that the dependence on expensive secondary services reduces.  We cannot focus on primary and community health services without linking to the wider local government agenda including social services but not exclusively.  Transport, housing, leisure and social inclusion will have a greater impact.