Health Services Health Services Sustainability and Transformation Plans Sustainability and transformation plans (STPs) are five year plans for the future of health and care services in local areas. NHS organisations have come together with local authorities and other partners to develop the plans in 44 areas of the country – in this area, Worcestershire and Herefordshire make up our local footprint. STPs represent a very significant change to the planning of health and care services in England. The scope of STPs is broad. Initial guidance from NHS England and other national NHS bodies set out around 60 questions for local leaders to consider in their plans, covering three headline issues: improving quality and developing new models of care; improving health and wellbeing; and improving efficiency of services. Leaders were asked to identify the key priorities needed for their local area to meet these challenges and deliver financial balance for the NHS. The plans needed to cover all aspects of NHS spending, as well as focusing on better integration with social care and other local authority services. They also needed to be long term, covering October 2016 to March 2021. More information about STPs can be found here - https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/topics/integrated-care/sustainability-transformation-plans-explained Herefordshire and Worcestershire Sustainability and Transformation Plan The plan and supporting documents can be found here - http://www.hacw.nhs.uk/yourconversation/ Report on engagement Building Health Partnerships: Self Care Project About the programme: The Building Health Partnerships (BHP) Self-Care programme provides funded support to enable Sustainability and Transformation Partnerships to engage with the Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) sector and citizens on wellbeing and self-care priorities. This will include hearing local perspectives and priorities, addressing potential issues and starting to co-produce future sessions and activity that will make up the local programme. Based on the feedback from the Sustainability and Transformation Plan engagement exercise, and the strong messages given by carers during the process, Herefordshire & Worcestershire successfully applied to join the Building Healthy Partnerships programme, with a focus on the role of carers in self care. The Self Care Forum’s definition of Self Care is: ‘The actions that individuals take for themselves, on behalf of and with others in order to develop, protect, maintain and improve their health, wellbeing or wellness. There is more detail about self-care on their website here.’ The first meeting took place on 5th July and was well attended by carers and other partners. The notes and presentation from the meeting on 5th July can be found here: Building healthcare partnership notes Partnership presentation If you would be interested in being involved in this work in future, please contact Carole Cumino on 01905 751340 or email CCumino@carersworcs.org.uk. ?