The challenge

To maximise independence and deliver better outcomes, a person’s needs should be addressed by the entire system, but the current model does not reflect this reality. The adult social care system (led by local councils’ Departments of Adult Social Services) is often set up as a series of silos. Add to that the challenge of navigating the complexity between the NHS and care services, and the consequences of looking inwards and focussing only on what can be directly controlled – rather than across the whole system to see what might be influenceable elsewhere – it often means poorer outcomes for people and higher costs for the taxpayer.

Our approach

Leaders within the health and care systems are often forced to frame problems too narrowly and only deal with the aspects of care that they directly control. Effective working in complex systems requires a mindset shift – towards a focus on outcomes and working across organisational and system boundaries – and tools that make it easier to manage complexity and produce lasting, positive change.

Based on our successful EDGEWORK® theory of change we have developed an approach which enables our partners to:

Identify new opportunities for the NHS and gives Directors of Adult Social Care the confidence to build capacity and ultimately manage demand better – saving money

Create real confidence in seizing these opportunities – by enabling frontline teams to drive performance change and reach beyond what they can directly control and begin to influence across interfaces and boundaries

Deliver capacity or savings at scale across places and systems

Create more resilient places by investing in skills transfer and team enablement

Shifts the focus onto preventing and managing demand rather than simply accepting it as inevitable

Defines what ’good’ adult social care looks like, setting clear expectations around the outcomes achieved for the money spent (value) and how to measure it

When applying EDGEWORK® into both health and Adults social care we developed a unique proposition ‘Valuing Home’ . Valuing home concentrates on three main areas:

• Building behaviour-based approaches to better outcome discharges – our Valuing Home methodology
• Designing and driving joint commissioning outcomes
• Implementing place-based models of care built around demand management, especially for older people