East of England sustainability and transformation plans explained

In December 2015, the NHS shared planning guidance 16/17 – 20/21 outlining a new approach to help ensure that health and care services are built around the needs of local populations. To do this, every health and care system in England will produce a multi-year Sustainability and Transformation Plan (STP), showing how local services will evolve and become sustainable over the next five years – ultimately delivering the Five Year Forward View vision of better health, better patient care and improved NHS efficiency.

The six systems for the east of England include:

• Norfolk and Waveney
• Suffolk and North East Essex
• Cambridge and Peterborough
• Mid and South Essex
• Hertfordshire and West Essex
• Bedford, Milton Keynes and Luton

Each of the above systems will produce a plan setting out how they will address health, quality and financial gaps. The better the plan, the greater ability local health and care systems have to access STP funding. To date each system has produced a report setting out their challenges, leadership and governance arrangements for their STP.  At the end of June, draft plans were submitted to NHS England setting out their change priorities in order to be agreed and signed off. This requires a different way of planning; both local and national level to work in partnership across organisational boundaries and sectors, and will require changes not just in process, but in culture and behaviour. If we get this right, together we will engage patients, staff and communities from the start, allowing us to develop services that reflect the needs of patients and improve outcomes by 2020/21, closing the gaps. We will mobilise energy and enthusiasm around place-based systems of health and care, develop the ownership, relationships and governance necessary to deliver, providing a coherent platform for future investment from the Sustainability and Transformation Fund.

As STP Plans undertake a review process over July, emerging change priorities focus on:

• Services at home: Models to improve, integrate and sustain primary and community care. Focusing on areas such as health prevention, promotion and neighbourhood teams to integrate care across multiple pathways.
• Services in hospital: Significant reconfiguration of Acutes and services in order to re-designate emergency centres, integrated urgent care and improve access to paediatrics and maternity services. As well improving flow in  relation to frail/ elderly, end of life, long term conditions pathways.
• Mental Health and Learning Disabilities: reviewing services provided by specialist Trust, vs those which could be integrated with others

Each of HEE's Workforce Partnerships in the east of England have been working with their local STP team to support them in developing a strategic workforce vision, review and validate workforce intelligence and build workforce planning capacity. It is anticipated that by Autumn, HEE and the other national arms length bodies (ALBs) will ensure that tools, policies and support are in place to allow the most advanced STPs to progress in their planning for 17/18.