Lamb reveals number of integration pioneers

The successful projects are being whittled down from 99 expressions of interest, Mr Lamb told a fringe event at the Liberal Democrat conference in Glasgow.

The Department of Health had initially expected about 35 applications and with only about 10 pioneers to be selected.

Integrated care pioneers will aim to provide seamless care across NHS and social care services to groups such as the elderly, disabled and those living with long term conditions.

Mr Lamb said the pioneers could bring about a “revolution” in the way healthcare was provided.

He said: “They will be exemplars of how it should be done and will produce not only savings but also better care. This is about joining up care.”

The minister said too often patients were “shunted” from one service to another often having to tell their story four or five times.

“Something will collapse in the organisation of that. It is like a jungle trying to negotiate your way through it.

“Integration pioneers are a new way of doing things instead of in the past Whitehall saying this is the new way to do it. Now we are saying to the health system ‘you come up with the ideas, we are giving you a licence to experiment’.”

He added there was a “top down culture” in the NHS which was “used to Whitehall imposing top down change”.

Supporting calls for more innovation in the system, he said the NHS was in a “time warp where you still see faxes flying around the system where they have completely disappeared from the rest of the economy.”