Reset and Reform MS services: through commissioning & service management

NHS Reset and Reform highlights the priorities for a national prevention agenda through the NHS Long Term Plan, and for local integrated service delivery through the new planning bodies across the country - and demonstrates how these are essential to the future delivery of MS services.

From a focus on place-based care and prevention, to reducing unnecessary hospital admissions, and encouraging people to engage in positive lifestyle changes to both manage and treat their MS: tomorrow's transformation begins at a planning level today.

The importance of integration at every level cannot be overstressed, and the report makes it abundantly clear that true place-based care is reliant on integration across services and support for physical, mental, emotional and social health.

This is vital both to optimally support people with MS, but also to make the best use of the services available across any given community. Specialist MS services are not necessarily au fait with working with colleagues from across the community health, social care and voluntary sector on a regular basis. There can also be a tendency to consider only the 'bit' of the pathway, or indeed of the condition, that each particular service interacts with - to move forward effectively, the whole of the person and their varied needs must be considered equally.

The role of social prescribing and community services which fall outside of the traditional health space have an important role in maximising people's overall health and wellbeing, encouraging self-management and preventing avoidable disease progression.

Thinking about the whole pathway approach will need to become standard for the future and will require new ways of working and new partnerships to be developed.

To learn more about 'NHS Reset and Reform', read the written report here.