Total Place report calls for collaboration

The document , published on 22 July 2010 by the Local Government Association and the MJ, says that the pilot studies showed that Total Place could improve services, reduce and reduce costs. But it also identifies a need for change in order to make the programme work on a wider basis. Total Place involves taking a 'whole area' approach to local service delivery, aimed at better coordinating services from different bodies and removing duplication. One of the 13 pilot areas, Dorset, which focused on how to improve services for senior citizens at less cost, found that reducing the significant number of unplanned hospital admissions by old people would require greater integration of health and social care. It said that initiatives such as telecare could also make a significant contribution. Since 2006 Dorset has been piloting telecare to monitor people at home. The pilot, a joint initiative between the county council and NHS Dorset, has saved £155,000 through delaying or preventing the need for care home admissions or enabling early hospital discharge. The Coventry, Solihull and Warwickshire pilot found that it needed the flexibility to improve information sharing and IT to improve children's services. Kent reported that its Total Place pilot was a continuation of modernisation that has taken place over the last 10 years. It said the pilot had "increased momentum" through closer partnership working. However, the council also said that current organisation and legislative structures "seriously constrain" its ability to collect, share and interrogate data and information about service provision. Birmingham called for better analysis of data on long term costs and benefits, so that spending decisions are based on more reliable information. A key aim of Total Place is to avoid overlap and duplication between organisations. Examples of potential savings that could be generated by this approach include Lewisham's findings that it could save up to £15m through more collaborative procurement. Also, Gateshead, South Tyneside and Sunderland said they could save up to £12m jointly by delivering integrated targeted services. Michael Bichard, chair of the Total Place officials group and director of the Institute for Government, said: "We can ignore the lessons of Total Place and set our sights solely on saving money by reducing the costs of existing services. But if that is the sum total of our ambition, then many of the current flaws will remain and be accentuated by a lack of resources. "Alternatively we can take the lessons to heart and look much more fundamentally at the way our public services operate, their purpose, their shape and the way they do or not work effectively together."