ICB chief executive publishes state of the system report

The chief executive of NHS Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board (ICB) has published an honest assessment of the state of the health and care system in the region.

Kevin Lavery will present his report, entitled ‘Turning challenges into opportunities: The state of our system report’ when the ICB board meets on Wednesday 29 March.

Mr Lavery has produced the report having been with the ICB for almost a year in order to outline the challenges faced across the system and how some of these will be addressed in the years to come.

Opening the report, Mr Lavery says: “I want to be up front with you. We are a system approaching a cliff edge and will need to make fundamental changes to avoid falling off.”

And this frank and honest tone is adopted throughout the report, with Mr Lavery keen to be up front about the scale of the challenges ahead.

He continues: “We are facing serious challenges. Some result from the pandemic while others are no different from what our health and care system has been facing for some years now.

“These challenges are obvious. I don’t want you to read this report and think ‘here we go again, it’s the same old story’, although you could be forgiven for doing so.”

He adds, however: “There is good news. We have an opportunity here to steer the car away from the cliff edge and turn headlong into a genuine opportunity to make a difference to generations to come.

“We can overcome the challenges we face and improve the system for everybody living in Lancashire and South Cumbria.”

The report begins by evaluating the current state of the system before looking at a number of areas where things could be done differently to make improvements.

These include changes to the way out-of-hospital services are run, focusing on prevention, making best use of the resources available and supporting the workforce.

In his conclusion, Mr Lavery says: “Our task now is to embrace and harness the spirit and approach adopted  during the COVID-19 pandemic to convert the current crisis into an amazing opportunity.

“We are a new organisation and so we are still shaping our structures and priorities.

“However it is our ambition and vision to have a world class and community-centric health and care system. We want to narrow health inequalities and improve health outcomes.”