The integrated care pioneers are 25 sites around England that were selected for having the ‘most ambitious and visionary’ plans for health and social care integration. They were selected in two waves, the first of which commenced in November 2013 (14 sites). PIRU were commissioned by the Department of Health to carry out a multi-stranded long-term evaluation for up to five years from July 2015. The aim of the wider evaluation is to assess the extent to which the pioneers are successful in improving outcomes and quality of care – in a cost-effective way by providing ‘person-centred coordinated care’.
Our work as part of this evaluation aims to track high-level changes across the populations in the pioneer areas. More specifically:
- identify aggregate indicators of integrated care and its consequences from relevant, routine, national and local administrative datasets
- analyse a range of pioneer-level indicators looking at levels and patterns of service use
- examine changes in key indicators of the extent of care coordination and its consequences comparing pioneer with non-pioneers.
Further information on the evaluation is available here.