Leading Health and Social Care Integration

Integration is a means, not an end, and this module helps you ask what it is for before you reach for a structure. It works through Walter Leutz's three levels of integration, the rainbow model from Pim Valentijn and colleagues, the Welsh what matters conversation and England's NHS vanguard sites. It reads the evidence honestly and draws on Huxham and Vangen to explain why collaboration is hard.

Regional Partnership Boards carry real money and real expectations in Wales, at a moment of transition. This module explains why integration is planned by region, how a Welsh health board both plans and delivers care, and what Part 9 of the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014 asks of the seven boards. It traces A Healthier Wales and hears what third sector leaders told the boards in 2017.

In England the map keeps moving, and the people and footprints you work with are changing before the law is settled. This module sets out integrated care systems, boards and partnerships under the Health and Care Act 2022, the plan to abolish NHS England, board mergers and the Health Bill, and the three shifts of the 10 Year Health Plan. It argues for planning around functions rather than organisations.

Money is where partnership commitments are tested, and the way it moves reveals what partners are prepared to risk together. This module starts from the Total Place lesson of counting the whole first, maps where prevention value lands, and sets out four ways to bring money together. It compares England's Better Care Fund with Wales's Regional Integration Fund, reads the 2026 Audit Wales review and closes with five questions for any pooled fund.

No structure cares for anyone: care is a workforce before it is a structure. This module looks at the scale of the adult social care workforce challenge using Skills for Care figures, the pressures on multidisciplinary teams, and Edgar Schein's three levels of culture. It compares NHS and social care workforces, the Fair Pay Agreement in England and the Welsh route, then sets out six practices for a joint workforce.

The shift from hospital to home succeeds or fails at the boundaries between organisations. This module sets out five steps of a good discharge, uses Senge's shifting the burden archetype to show how quick fixes weaken real solutions, and explores what matters over time and task through Cartrefi Cymru's home care review and Buurtzorg. It then turns to the hidden ninety per cent, Local Area Coordination and housing as part of health.

When a partnership fails, families, regulators and auditors will ask who was responsible, and leaders need a clear, honest answer. This module maps who answers for what in England and Wales, sets out why a joint board does not merge its members' duties, and uses contribution rather than attribution to describe shared outcomes. It covers the ICO Data Sharing Code, joined-up data and five assurance questions for board members.

Structures can open the door to integrated care, but only people working with trust and shared purpose can walk through it. This module draws on Huxham and Vangen's collaborative advantage and inertia, compares leading through structure with leading through relationship, and reads the Greater Manchester devolution evaluation. It explores leading at place, inviting the third sector early, cross-border learning and what integration asks of leaders in each role.

This capstone reads three very different cases through the key ideas of integration, keeping one person at the centre throughout. Torbay shows what designing for Mrs Smith rather than the organogram can achieve; the Regional Integration Fund, read through Audit Wales's 2026 review, shows why time-limited funds need a lasting plan; and Gwent, the first Marmot region in Wales, shows systems leadership on the wider determinants of health.