The NHS Long Term Plan once again commits the NHS, local government and other partners to delivering integrated care; to see: ‘Traditional barriers between care institutions, teams and funding streams [broken down] so as to support the increasing number of people with long-term health conditions, rather than viewing each encounter with the health service as a single, unconnected ‘episode’ of care.’

At a workshop on integration earlier this year up it was once again easy to be struck by the difficulty of this task. Faced by the need to produce a plethora of complex delivery plans, and commission a vast range of interventions, participants at the workshop said they are struggling  to know where to begin.