The integrated system and partnership working in health and care

These resources are based on research from the ‘Better Care Moves for Older People’ project, funded by the NIHR School for Social Care Research (NIHR SSCR). The resource hub includes a catalogue of videos, a summary of key insights from the research project, and a policy brief for social care staff and managers that provides practical tips for improving move-related practices.

Collaboration across health, social care, and local government continues to shape how support is delivered, demonstrating how stronger connections across our sector can help us meet challenges, share learning, and improve outcomes for the people we support.

In this issue, we highlight networking and learning opportunities for care managers to strengthen effective partnerships, alongside key guidance to support further understanding.

Skills for Care highlights that safe and effective delegation from health professionals to care workers can give individuals more choice and control over when and how their care is delivered, improving their overall experience and quality of support. This resource hub shares the delegated healthcare activities guiding principles, along with supporting materials. 

The NHS Long Term Plan contained a commitment to roll out the Framework for Enhanced Health in Care Homes across England between 2020 and 2024. This document explains what the Enhanced Health in Care Homes (EHCH) programme is, how to make it work in the best way possible for people living in care homes and the people who care for them, and what everyone involved can expect from it.

These Pan-Sussex meetings bring together representatives from local employers and national bodies across East Sussex, West Sussex, and Brighton & Hove. They give employers the opportunity to contribute to strategic planning for the sector and include updates on school engagement projects, skills bootcamps, and workforce development priorities.

This how to guide will give care home managers and staff, guidance on how to create a community within the care home and bring members of the local community into the home to volunteer, befriend, run activities and form friendship groups with their residents.

Using electronic records to capture assessments, diagnostics, care plans and interactions with a person and their family are now commonplace within health and social care services

Resources, consultancy and training on integrating health, care and related services. Includes guides, models and evidence to support local areas, integrated care organisations, sustainability and transformation plans, care and health providers and commissioners.

Integrated care systems (ICSs) are the centrepiece of the biggest legislative overhaul of the NHS in a decade. From July 2022, England will be formally divided into 42 area-based ICSs, covering populations of around 500,000 to 3 million people.

First published in 2022, this guide has been updated in 2025 to reflect current system priorities and pressures across health and social care. It supports leaders and managers to think differently about how workforces and services can be planned and delivered in more integrated, person-centred ways.

Integrated care is about people only having to tell their story once to get the high-quality care and support that means they can live the lives they want. It presents the opportunity for joint working across service providers to ensure person-centred care, where choice and control is based on what matters to the person drawing on care and support.

This module supports social care managers to build effective internal and external partnerships that strengthen practice and improve outcomes for people using services. It explores how strong relationships enable shared learning, access to expertise and resources, and more effective, person-centred support.

Aligned with Standard 5 of the Manager Induction Standards, the module focuses on partnership working and co-production, helping managers reflect on existing relationships and identify practical next steps towards Good and Outstanding practice.

By the end of the module, managers will be better equipped to understand why partnership working matters, what makes partnerships effective, and how co-production can be embedded into everyday practice.

This development series is based on insights and experience drawn from work with a number of Integrated Care Systems across England. It will explore what partnership working looks like across teams and organisations. What does this mean for leaders? It is co-designed with input from with the NHSLA and local representatives to understand their current challenges and opportunities. 6 modules in topics including Leading alongside your local communities and Improving the health of our local communities

This standard relates to the importance of building relationships and partnerships as part of your role as a manager within adult social care.

This document sets out guidelines to help integrated care boards (ICBs), local authorities and health and care providers continue to progress neighbourhood health in 2025/26 in advance of the publication of the 10 Year Health Plan. 

The aim of this resource is to inform and support older people’s moves into and between social care settings. These resources are grounded in real-life experience and evidence from our co-production work, the literature review and interviews around care moves and how to improve practice.

Beyond partnerships with healthcare, there is a wide range of other partners for adult social
care providers to work together with. These examples are drawn from Skills for Care’s discussions with providers about who they are partnering with and how this helps.

The Enhanced health in care homes (EHCH) framework (2023) is for primary care networks (PCNs) and providers and commissioners of community health and social care services. It guides the commissioning of and delivery arrangements for health and social care services in collaboration with care homes, so that the entire system works together to provide personalised care, improve outcomes and promote independence for people living in care. It recognises the life course of people who live in a care home and promotes the ethos of living, ageing and dying well.

Skills for Care host a range of networks designed to support leaders and managers across adult social care. These groups offer space to connect with peers, share challenges, and hear updates from local partners and system leaders. Use this directory to find your local network and the contact details of your locality manager.

This report explores how co-production shapes innovation in social care, drawing on the views of over 800 people with lived experience, unpaid carers, family members, frontline staff and system leaders. The report reinforces the importance of genuine partnership working and offers practical steps to strengthen co-production, supporting more inclusive and effective innovation across social care.

Skills for Care host a range of networks designed to support leaders and managers across adult social care. These groups offer space to connect with peers, share challenges, and hear updates from local partners and system leaders.

The NHS across Sussex has set out the immediate and long-term priorities for improvement to health services for local people. Health and care services across the whole country …

These six principles of workforce integration were developed to support leaders, managers, practitioners and organisations to consider what is meant by integration. They encourage us to think about how workforce development can contribute to the implementation and sustainability of integration by focusing on personalised care and improving the lives of people drawing on care and support.

The Sussex Training Hub supports the delivery of excellent healthcare and health improvement in GP practices by ensuring the primary care workforce of today and tomorrow are trained in the right numbers, have the necessary skills at the right time and in the right place. 

These top tips, and key actions, have been co-developed to support effective collaborative partnership working in the planning and delivery of community mental health services. They recognise that every heath and care system will experience challenges in relation to partnership working given the statutory and cultural differences of organisations working across the mental health pathways and that there will be different arrangements to frame local partnership working, including for example a Section 75 agreement.

An information page on integrated care systems.

This blog post from 2023 breaks down what integration in health and social care means and the different levels of Integrated Care Systems.

An information page on partnership working in health and care.

This tool was created to help get you thinking about how well you currently work with partners. You can start by assessing what you do well and where you may look to improve. Rate yourself from 1-5, with five being strong in an area and one being an area in need of the most improvement.