About the network

You are invited to join a like-minded group of people who are already taking action, whether it’s through actively engaging with people and communities or commissioning. We recognise it isn’t easy and there’s lots more work to be done. We would like to spread the learning from one area to another, and the best way we think we can do this is through the New Systems of Care Network.

Background

The network has been formed, supported by the South West Academic Health Science Network (SW AHSN) as a direct response from an event hosted by the SW AHSN in July 2017, that discussed how communities and general practice can come together to create a system change at a local level.

We believe that good health is about more than just drugs and medicines

It makes sense to encourage people to take positive actions to address the causes of their health problems rather than just prescribing them with medication to treat symptoms. For instance, there are large amounts of research which show that the main route into mental illness is loneliness and isolation. If we could tackle loneliness and isolation, then we may solve a major problem facing communities – as well as sustaining the myriad of groups that are doing ‘something good’ to solve these difficult issues.

Current Activity

There is a huge amount of activity already happening that gives us hope there is much to learn from. We have 73 GPs identified as being active with social prescribing across the South West of England – check out this map to see where they are. We hope this will grow and develop over the coming months and years. The network will be a place to meet and learn from one another.

This network is designed to help its members reimagine how healthcare can become more centred around communities and people. The purpose of the network is to aid and support the sharing of learning across organisational, civic and geographic boundaries. Out of this will come the key ingredients we need to ‘bake’ a new healthcare system. Many of us have already started to trial and test new ‘ingredients’, ‘cooking tools’ and ‘techniques’. we need to share these and continue to learn what works best for population needs. We will use this learning to influence both our own practice and collectively influence decision-making.

The principles we operate by and that you are agreeing to are:

1. Welcoming to all - It will invite new 'voices' in order to create an accessible and diverse network.
2. Collaborative - It will value a collaborative style to maximise successful action and learning.
3. Action focused - It will have conversations that result in something positively changing.
4. Fun and creative - It will take risks and test new techniques when convening conversations
5. Strengths-based - It will inquire into what is going well and how it can be built upon.
6. We will model new culture and behaviours