Sustainability and Transformation Plan summary published

The Sustainability and Transformation Plan (STP) summary for Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire is now available for you to give your feedback on. The summary, which is available on the South Gloucestershire Clinical Commissioning Group website, gives an overview of where health and social care services are now, and the emerging vision for their future.

This Sustainability Transformation Plan summary describes how the local CCGs and other service providers propose to organise and deliver services in a different way to meet the needs of the population across Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire.

When it’s completed, the plan will set out how health and social care services will work in partnership to develop plans that will enable them to continue to meet the health needs of the local population at a time of increasing demand and constrained resources.

Visit the South Gloucestershire CCG website to download the summary.

You can send comments on the summary, or be notified of opportunities to get involved by filling out their feedback form.

NHS England has divided England up into 44 STP ‘footprints’ and each area must develop a Sustainability and Transformation Plan that brings together all local health and social care providers, to create a health and care system that is viable in the long term.

NHS England’s STP footprint document says:

“The NHS Shared Planning Guidance asked every local health and care system in England to come together to create their own ambitious local plan for accelerating the implementation of the Five Year Forward View (5YFV). These blueprints, called Sustainability and Transformation Plans (STPs), will be placebased, multi-year plans built around the needs of local populations.

“STPs will help drive a genuine and sustainable transformation in health and care outcomes between 2016 and 2021. They will also help build and strengthen local relationships, enabling a shared understanding of where we are now, our ambition for 2021 and the concrete steps needed to get us there.”

Robert Woolley, Chief Executive of University Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust, is the STP lead for Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire. There are also workstream leads, including:

• Julie Clarke, Chief Executive of Bristol Community Health: integrated primary and community care workstream
• Andrea Young, North Bristol NHS Trust Chief Executive: acute care collaboration workstream
• Mark Pietroni, Director for Public Health, South Gloucestershire Council: early intervention and self-care workstream

Andrea Young, who is also chair of Bristol Health Partners, said:

“Demands on the
NHS, as you will be well aware, are increasing beyond our means and we are no longer
able to continue delivering health and care in the same way and still meet those needs. Although services
are better than ever, people are living longer with more complex health conditions,
such as diabetes or dementia, and these conditions need to be carefully managed,
sometimes for decades.

“The cost of care
is also increasing and sometimes the way we deliver care is not the most efficient. We
know that across Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire there is variation in quality and service and we
want to change this.”

Local health leaders explain the STP