The Integration teams are taking a joint approach across health and care, working to support family wellbeing and have been set up to test out how we can work more closely together and respond more quickly to the needs of families with children and young people.

Local services are under increasing pressure, working with families in crisis. The teams will identify opportunities to work with families at an earlier stage and will improve the lives of families and children and young people and reduce the need for more specialist services across the council and the NHS. They will work with all sectors working with families, children and young people to test out a new way of working, whilst also capturing the learning on what will best help families locally.

Local leaders from across the council and the NHS have committed to working together closely as part of the Shropshire plan with the aim of everyone living their best life.

The Integration teams are based on evidence and learning from other areas, where a similar approach has been adopted. Positive impacts, include:

• Improved outcomes for families
• Families having more positive contact with services and practitioners
• Improved communication between staff in different organisations
• Strengthened connections to local communities

The integration test and learn sites are exciting and positive, and the concept has been well received by the staff themselves who are highly motivated to develop a new way of working, re-creating partnerships across the NHS, council, voluntary and community sectors.

Integration Consultation Panels are currently available in the areas listed below with future teams planned as follows:

Roles and responsibilities of integration consultation panel

The Consultation Panel form should be used by all partners who would like to present the work they are doing with a family to the Integrated Practitioner Team where a joint approach may benefit that family.

The Integration projects, bring together multi-agency partners based within Shropshire. The teams provide an efficient means of considering and exploring how best to identify and meet the needs of the families, children and young people, where their current situation is negatively impacting on them. The multi-agency approach reduces the potential risk of the situation escalating further by providing access or signposting to the right level of support in a timely way.

The consultation panel form should be completed alongside a consent form from the family.

We’ve a process flowchart to help understand the purpose of the integrated teams and to complete the consultation panel.