TRAFFORD Council is the proud joint winner of an NHS award for an innovative integrated working project called i-Care.

The award recognises changes to the way the authority functions, including how it operates with key partners from the NHS and other agencies. Jill Colbert, Trafford Council’s Interim Corporate Director for Children, Families and Wellbeing said: “We are very proud to have won this award and congratulate all of the winners in this year’s NHS Health Education England.

“Trafford Council faces significant challenges in continuing to deliver high quality integrated services against a backdrop of rising demand and a significantly reduced budget. There has been a strong and very well led transformation programme in place to support us to do this and to promote messages around change to our workforce and partners. In the context of the Greater Manchester Devolution agenda and the call to ‘take charge’ of our health and social care outcomes, we are driving forward the integration of community services as our solution and the I-Care project is an example of how committed we are to taking our workforce with us.

“The i-Care Project focussed exclusively on workforce and was designed to bring about the capacity to implement a partner wide change programme so we could accelerate the integration of their services with Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust and develop a robust, considered and tailored approach to joint workforce development.”

The project focussed on three main themes: all age integration, family engagement and commissioning, so it spanned the width and breadth of most services and included health and social care staff. Each theme underpinned the wider all age integrated structure proposed for the future and was aimed at addressing the needs of their local population while supporting staff to deliver care within available resources.

This meant supporting staff to think and act differently, while working more collaboratively across traditional organisational divides. The project benefitted not only a wide range of staff from across health, social care and multi-agency partners but also service users who received better care and advice as a result of the staff attending the training. Trafford Council believe the i-Care Project is just the beginning and has established a great foundation to build on in the coming 12-24 months as our integrated service gets established Richard Spearing, Integrated Network Director for Pennine Care and Trafford Council, said: “I want to add my congratulations to the team for their work in delivering the i-Care project. As an authority, Trafford Council is always looking at new and innovative ways of working more efficiently and closely with other organisations, which is demonstrated through the partnership with Pennine Care to deliver integrated health and social care services. The i-Care project is an excellent example of the kind of working that achieves savings whilst improving service provision for our residents."

Trafford Council was joint winner of the Integrated Working North West Award with Sefton Council for Voluntary Service and Sefton Council for their New Realities (Merseyside) project.