PATIENTS in north Essex are set for more joined up community care thanks to a new alliance between hospitals, GPs, businesses and charities.

The North East Essex Integrated Community Services (NICS) will be responsible for providing services, such as community nursing, stroke rehabilitation and community beds, in Colchester and Tendring from July.

The service is made up from the East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust, GP Primary Choice, Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust and Virgin, which provides children’s services.

A new partnership has been awarded the £440million ten-year contract to run the new joined-up community healthcare service by the NHS North East Essex Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG).

Pam Green, chief operating officer for the CCG, said: “This will be a much more integrated way than we’ve seen services delivered before.

“Community services really is the glue in the system - and it has tentacles into almost every part of those partners and businesses.

“If we can do it all together, we actually get a better service and a more joined up service.

“Children will have less issues around transitioning from children’s services to adult services and there will be more joined up care between hospital consultants and community and GP services.”

The new service includes working with the voluntary sector and district and borough councils, and will help the CCG to look at the reasons why people are unwell.

Mrs Green added: “It’s not always about whether people get to see their doctor or not.

“Usually, it’s actually about the housing they’re living in or the fact they don’t have access to jobs or the there’s not enough green space.

“We’re trying to work on a prevention model and we need to have all of our partners around the table.”

One of the new joined up services will include community geriatricians to ensure elderly people in Tendring can be treated at Clacton Hospital, with linked up diagnostics rather than having to be taken to Colchester Hospital.

Mrs Green added: “They will be able to manage people’s care in the community, so they don’t have to be admitted to hospital.

“They will be able to support the clinical teams, linking with the social workers and the voluntary sector to enable that person to return to their life as it was before.

“Wherever sort of support is needed, it will be much more joined up.”

Dr Ed Garratt, chief executive of the CCG, said the new contract is one of England’s largest healthcare contracts.

“One of the important areas from public feedback was the need for our services to be more joined up,” he said.

“The approach that the alliance will take is in line with our broader strategy of integrated care which seeks to reduce duplication by bringing together health and care professionals in locally-based community teams and form closer links with our magnificent voluntary sector,” he said.

Integrated care means the traditional divisions between hospitals and family doctors and physical and mental health care can be removed so people don’t experience disjointed care.

Dr Garratt thanked healthcare provider Anglian Community Enterprise (ACE), which ran the previous Care Closer to Home contract.

It is hoped that by housing the new service as part of a bigger system it will be more joined up than by being run by an individual company.