Integrated Care Partnership

Organisations across Northamptonshire who deliver mental health, social care and physical health care are working together as Northamptonshire Integrated Care Partnership (NICP).

This is a new way of working, bringing together local councils, health and social care organisations, local charities, and community groups to look after the people of Northamptonshire.

Teams from different organisations will come together to plan and deliver joined-up health and care services to help people live well and stay well. The focus is on supporting people to stay healthy, keep their independence for longer and be able to manage their own care.

We know that people’s health and wellbeing can be impacted by lots of different things in their lives. This might include their homes, education, work or social inequalities.  Addressing these issues fundamentally underpins the work of NICP.

What this means for you

We want to help you stay well for longer by supporting you to lead a healthier life and manage your own health conditions. We want to do this by offering easier access to care when you need it, often closer to where you live.

Northamptonshire Integrated Care Partnership aims to make the transition between health and care services seamless, so you do not have to keep repeating your story to different teams and organisations. Equal importance will be placed on mental and physical health, with the key aim of delivering care closer to home, meaning you will only have to go to hospital when really necessary.

Who is involved in NICP?

NICP brings together health and social care partners to deliver quality care at the right time and in the right place. In Northamptonshire they are:

• West Northamptonshire Council
• North Northamptonshire Council
• NHS Northamptonshire Integrated Care Board
• Northampton General Hospital
• Kettering General Hospital
• Northamptonshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust
• The Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) sector

Together, these partners are responsible for agreeing, delivering and monitoring health and care services across our county. NICP must also produce a plan – called an Integrated Care Strategy – which sets out how we will meet the health and wellbeing needs of Northamptonshire.

Purpose of an Integrated Care Partnership

Our health and care needs are changing with a growing population across Northamptonshire. People are living to older ages with more complex and long-term illnesses, which means there is growing demand for local health and care services.

In the past, barriers and gaps between different parts of health and care have resulted in disjointed experiences and outcomes for the people who use them. Using health and care services often means many appointments with different people in different places.

So, by creating the new Northamptonshire Integrated Care Partnership (ICP), local organisations can work together more closely to collectively improve the health of local people.

Local Area Partnerships

Neighbourhoods – known as Local Area Partnerships (LAPs) – are an important part of NICP. They aim to ensure health and care services are better co-ordinated and delivered more proactively for people at local level.

For every local community across Northamptonshire there will be a Local Area Partnership, each covering a population of between 30,000 and 50,000 people.

In Northamptonshire there will be a total of 17 LAPs – nine of these in West Northamptonshire area and eight across North Northamptonshire. These partnerships will be governed by health and wellbeing forums and served by groups of GP practices (known as Primary Care Networks) working with NHS community services, local councils and social care providers.

Local Area Partnerships will:

• Provide detailed understanding of residents' local health and care needs at a street and household level
• Support residents to co-produce new services and solve problems by building trusting relationships and listening to their needs
• Provide a simpler and more joined-up health and care system with fewer barriers between health and care services and making sure that people only need to 'tell their story once'. LAPs will do this by bringing together teams from across health and care services and professions.