ALT • Continue to build strong relationships with the statutory system (including healthwatch), with each other and with infrastructure organisations to create coherent and holistic support offers • Support people who are waiting or unable to access services with information, practical and emotional assistance and advocacy • Collate data and insight on people’s unmet needs and inequalities around ability to access services • Advocate for holistic, community and person centred, and equitable support models that help people cope when facing access difficulties to statutory services • Focus service development and outreach on communities traditionally underserved, even by the charity and voluntary sector • Engage with the emerging ICS leadership groups to emphasise improving timely access for people across the whole system and all its services, rather than prioritising structural decisions and processes

ALT Communicate clearly how exactly people can access which service locally and ensure that all parts of a pathway are in fact able to deliver the arrangements communicated to patients. Ensure that the imminent NHS restructure and creation of ICS doesn’t distract from the job of improving access to care and create system wide agreed plans for timely access. Give people full access to their care records, in ways that work for them, and ensure that the data on their records is accurate and relevant. Implement the communications standard for people who are waiting for care and ensure that people whose care is disrupted understand that they are still your patients. Clearly signpost to non-clinical sources of support and pay community groups and the VCSE to provide such support (helplines, peer support, advocacy). Put in place strong support for carers, again in partnership with community groups. Please get in touch for full image description.

ALT Communicate clearly the pressures services and staff are under but at the same time confirm that people are entitled and encouraged to use services where they need to. Urgently develop a costed and comprehensive workforce plan that is based on verifiable assessments of present and future need. Review levels of Statutory Sick Pay to reduce the financial hardship experienced by people who are waiting for care. Assess and publish levels of unmet need that go beyond numbers on official elective waiting lists and include primary and community care, mental health and chronic condition management Ensure that the ICS agenda remains focused on different ways of working that improve access for people, rather than just on different structures, governance and regulation. Publish at regular intervals data about waiting times, cancellations and referrals, and make this information usable for people to make decisions about their care...please get in touch for full image description.