Interoperability has three equally important aspects that are vital for success: good co-working relationships between staff; technology that makes co-working as easy as possible; and an enabling environment (in which funding, capacity, skills, education and governance are aligned).
This summer a huge restructure created 42 new NHS integrated care boards to plan and fund NHS services, and to deliver improvements on population health across an integrated care system. This is not a renaming of current ways of working but is intended use the new structures to work in new ways. Looking to next year, now is the time for the ‘so what?’ of system change – as the start-up focus on terms of reference subsides.