Evaluating a vanguard new care model

• Three co-located health and social care teams (in Hemsworth, Castleford, and Lupset)
• Additional third sector input from Age UK and Carers Wakefield
• An emergent process of thinking about and working on new ways of working

We were commissioned at the beginning of 2014 to undertake a long term independent evaluation of this initiative. This process concluded in early 2017, and involved, spread over this period:

• 680 structured interviews with patients / service users (working in partnership with the local Healthwatch)
• 50 depth interviews with carers
• 200 semi-structured interviews with staff
• Analysis of local quantitative activity data
• 6-monthly formative reports and staff engagement/feedback sessions

Our main findings, supported by a very large volume of both quantitative and qualitative data provided during the course of the project, were that Connecting Care:

• has led to improvements in the co-ordination, responsiveness, and quality of services experienced by many patients, and some, but not all carers
• is a change welcomed by staff providing the services
• has not had any clear impact on use of bed-based services, and therefore no clear overall financial impact