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Access to care

Our vision for our access to care priority is to ensure that our population can receive the care they need in the place that is the most appropriate to deliver it. We will achieve this by:

  • improving access to health and care for the communities we serve;
  • removing the barriers that create inequalities in accessing care; and
  • ensuring our people receive the right care in the right place first time

By working together, we aim to achieve the following for our communities:

  • earlier diagnosis and treatment for people with major health conditions;
  • improved health outcomes for people accessing pathways of care;
  • People can access the care they require using their preferred method (digital/in person) at an appropriate time for their presenting need; and
  • improved patient experience

Our purpose

Our purpose is to improve access to services for our communities to ensure they receive the care they need in the right place first time.  This will ultimately lead to better outcomes and better experience of care.  We will do this through maximising our screening and prevention programmes; making best use of our diagnostic resources and pathways of care; and designing new services to support people to receive care as close to home as possible.

Our population

Our population is diverse and this means we have to tailor our health care offer to meet varying needs, whether that be community based services, alternatives to accessing GPs and ED where people will be supported with various health and care needs, or through digital versus traditional face to face methods of delivering care.  We will use the technology and innovative pathways that we develop ourselves or that are offered through national and other initiatives to continue to serve our population needs.  Our place offers great facilities, infrastructure and partners so we can deliver care in different ways be that in non-healthcare premises, or with partners in the voluntary sector who are based in the communities we serve.  One size does not fit all, and where it can, this influences how we design and deliver our services to ensure those who find it challenging to access “traditional” healthcare, have alternatives to meet their needs.

Our partnership

Our partnership will guide the work of the priority and ensure that we all take responsibility for improving our services where we can, whether that be improved communication with our communities, considering changes to our pathways to make them more accessible or doing things well once across our Place.  We cannot tackle the inequalities we face without acting as one to ensure no one is left behind, and by working with our community-based teams this will ensure we listen and better understand the needs of our population – both in terms of their presenting health needs and concerns, and how they choose to access their care.

See the programmes of work in our priority area

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Respiratory

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Healthy hearts

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Diabetes