Resource Guide: Partnership

During the last Health Libraries Group Conference in July 2002, various themes of partnership have been explored. Among them, the partnership between health and social care was the most popular. Other major themes included partnership between health sector and local authorities or higher education, and partnership across organisational units. The following lists some of the resources highlighted during the conference and related studies.

Directorates of Health and Social Care are responsible for leading on joint working aspects of developments set out in the NHS White Paper. They are involved in the development of Health Improvement Programmes, Primary Care Groups and National Service Frameworks. There are 4 Directorates across England: Northern, Midlands and East of England, London, and Southern.

The National Electronic Library for Health (NeLH) and the electronic Library for Social Care (eLSC) have completed a six-month project to 'join up' knowledge in health and social care. The draft report is available at www.doh.gov.uk/ipu/nhsla/hiljnelh.pdf. Recommendations for a fully co-ordinated and integrated health and social care sector include:

" Better access to research and practice information across the health and social care sectors.
" Higher quality research and practice information across the sectors.
" Enhanced staff capacity to handle a range of electronic and traditional information sources.
" A network of regional health and social care libraries to support the national electronic library and information initiatives.
" Exploitation of relationships with other library and information partners, notably the JANET network and higher education libraries, and the public libraries system.

Further discussion on NeLH, eLSC, as well as National Knowledge Service can be found in: Turner A, Fraser V, Gray JAM, Toth B. A first class knowledge service: developing the National electronic Library for Health. Health Information and Libraries Journal 2002;19(3);133-145. Available at http://www.doh.gov.uk/ipu/nhsla/hiljnelh.pdf

Margaret Haines' presentation on knowledge management in health and social care at West Midlands South Workforce Development Confederationalso outlines the vision for the National Knowledge Service.

Workforce Development Confederations are partnership organisations bringing together local NHS and non-NHS employers to plan and develop the whole healthcare workforce. Guidance on their roles is available online.

To help improve services through integration of local authorities and the NHS, the Department of Health is going to launch in 24th October 2002 the Integrated Care Network, which will co-ordinate a central information resource, develop action learning sets, provide consultancy, spread good practice and knowledge and arrange national information meetings (Chief Executive Bulletin 5-12 September 2002, issue 134

NHS Beacon Programme identifies services that have been particularly innovative in meeting specific healthcare needs, and encourages them to share their experience. Run a topic search http://www.modern.nhs.uk/scripts/search/default.htm on "partnership working" for joined-up projects.

Care Direct is a service being developed by the Department of Health in partnership with some local councils for people aged 60 years and older and their carers and relatives. It helps older people to get in touch with the organisations that provide social care, health, housing and social security benefits.

seamlessUK is in the process of creating a web-based citizens' gateway integrating information from key national and local suppliers in a joined-up way. The initial emphasis will be on information about employment, benefits, health, education and active citizenship. Mary Rowlatt of Essex County Council explains the creation of seamlessUK in Managing Information 2002;9(8):46-49.

Plamping, D, Gordon, P, Pratt, J. Modernising the NHS: practical partnerships for health and local authorities. British Medical Journal 2000;320(7250);1723-1725. This article describes a range of behaviours that organisations may usefully employ when working together and suggests that different behaviours serve different purposes.

Partnership arrangements under Health Act 1999: summary of framework and possibilities. Kings Fund 2000. This document summaries the content and main implications of the arrangements of partnership that are possible within the terms of Health Act 1999.

Holton, M. The partnership imperative: joint working between social services and health. Journal of Management in Medicine 2001;15(6);430-445. This paper explores the partnership between social services and primary care, in one geographical area, in relation to five potential types of obstacle: structural; procedural; financial; professional; and status and legitimacy. It examines the theory of partnership and the government's attitude towards it.

Partnership under pressure: a commentary on progress in partnership working between the NHS and local government. Kings Fund 2002. This report provides a commentary on the progress being made by the NHS and local government as they work together to improve services for older people and people with long-term illness of disability.

Former Local Government National Training Organisation (LGNTO) has developed the Smarter Partnership Toolkit/ to promote learning and skills development which leads to more effective collaborative working.