The Future of Health initiative - which is run by Dods, publishers of CSW - will seek to create a new way of working among organisations within the health and care community by encouraging a more joined-up approach.
The initiative, which was launched at the St Pancras Renaissance Hotel in London on Wednesday, is designed to improve and develop person-centred care.
The campaign’s first big event is taking place on October 3 and 4, when healthcare professionals will come together with patients and their friends, carers and relatives to discuss ways of improving the management of long-term conditions.
Speaking at this week’s launch, Dr Martin McShane, Future of Health co-founder and director of long-term conditions, NHS England, said: “The increase of long-term conditions is one of the biggest challenges faced by the NHS. It is essential to work together to find new solutions to this ever-growing problem.”
He described the current situation as “the climate change for healthcare”, due to a change in demography, changing patterns of disease and societal expectations. “We are going to have to change if we are going to address those challenges as a health and care system,” he added. “This isn’t about policy; this is about delivery.”
McShane said the campaign will have three major components: effective care; safe care; and a positive patient experience – “something we have not paid sufficient attention to over the last ten to 20 years”.
To achieve this, he said, “a massive change in culture as well as processes within the system” is required.
Speakers at the event also included patient Penny Roberts (pictured above with other attendees), who broke her neck in a sports accident aged 31 in 1995, resulting in permanent paralysis from the chest down.
After spending nine months in hospital, she was discharged into community care – a system primarily designed for care of the elderly. She said she was completely dependent on carers who would “run in and out of my house to keep me alive”, creating a life she “did not want”.
However, three years later she changed her healthcare plan and converted to a ‘Direct Payments’ system, since when she has been able to buy care services herself with from the local authority. This, she said, has “completely changed my life”.
“I can train them [the carers]; they support me in whatever I need to do. I haven’t had a hospital admission in 15 years.”
She is now mother to a 15-year-old son, who she has raised with her husband after being told by healthcare professionals she was “too disabled” to care for a child.
The Direct Payments system, Roberts said, is not widespread enough, and people - patients and public servants alike - are averse to change.
One example of organisational inflexibility, she said, is the story of a sling she uses to get in and out of bed. She needed it replaced in February. But inefficiencies in the system mean she is still waiting for a replacement, having meanwhile spent an additional £30,000 of public money on carers to help her get in and out of bed. Had she the flexibility to replace the sling via Direct Payments, she added, it would have cost her £250.
“That’s the sort of false economy that needs to stop,” she said. “We just need to be sensible about things.”
Speakers at the October event will include Sir Bruce Keogh, medical director of NHS England; Paul Farmer, chief executive of Mind; and comedian and mental health campaigner, Ruby Wax.
Registration is now open at http://www.futureofhealth.co.uk .