Manchester LHCRE to invest £14.3m in integrated care tech

The Local Health and Care Record Exemplar (LHCRE) programme in Manchester is investing over £14m in new tech to support integrated care and people living with long-term conditions.

The Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) is contributing up to £6.8m as part of the project, with a further £7.5m coming from the Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Partnership (GMHSCP), under NHS England’s national LHCRE programme.

One of the first areas to be addressed will be dementia, with the aim being to improve care for people living with the condition by enabling critical information to be shared between patients, carers and professionals.

Technology will be used to support more robust integrated care planning, help people maintain their independence and detect changes in their condition to avoid hospital admission.

It will also be used to digitise the paper-based assessments used to review a child’s development up to the age of five. Parents and guardians will be able to complete and review the tests online, which will directly feed into the child’s health record and help identify children who need additional support.

Jon Rouse, chief officer of the GMHSCP, said: “Despite the digital revolution, public services have been left behind.  All too often important information is held on hundreds of different systems which cannot be accessed from one place, so people end up having to repeat their story, care is not joined up, important information is missed and problems are not identified early, which in extreme cases could lead to harm.

“Each locality has already made good progress on sharing information locally, but we now need to move beyond the basic ability to share information to maximising the opportunities brought by devolution and take a GM-wide approach to digitally transforming our public services.

“This will allow us to provide more personalised, integrated care and treatment, supported by rich data and next generation technology.  It will ensure we continue to be at the leading edge of health innovation, supporting a continued increase in jobs, growth and prosperity for all.”

In May 2018, Greater Manchester was selected as one of NHS England’s LHCREs. The programme aims to create a region-wide shared record.

The programme is currently in the midst of a procurement process to select the preferred providers to deliver the various technology solutions. Official announcements are due later in the year.