• Michelle S Balaratnam, Fergus J Rugg-Gunn, Rachel Okin, Freya Powell, Stephen Prior, Panayiota Petrochilos, Dhiren Shivji, Salman Haider, Ali Alim-Marvasti, Arvind Chandratheva, Robert Simister, Charlie Lane, Roberto Macarimban, Diego Kaski, Bal Athwal, Rebecca Liu, Timothy Yates, Sanjeev Rajakulendran, Gerry Christofi, Jeremy Sandford, Alexis Ingram, Katherine Bluston, Caroline Weaver, Oluwaseun Odejide, George Glod, Gulsen Gungor, Edmund Nkrumah, Donal Markey, Gary Hotton, Katie Sidle, Jonathan Kennedy, Lisa Penniall, Helen Plum, Anthony Antoniou, Rakhee Prema, Nadia Jeffries, Carole Walters, Valerie L Stevenson, Malini Drysdale, Sabiha Tasnim, Shahrima Hussain, Lily Mackay, Ryan Baulk, Bianca IIii, David Egan, Adrian Capp, Patricia Turner, and Christopher Turner.
• National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK. Electronic address: m.balaratnam@nhs.net.
• Clin Med (Lond). 2024 Nov 1; 24 (6): 100234100234.

AbstractIntegrated care systems join up health and care services, so that people have the support they need, in the right place, at the right time. The aims include improving outcomes in healthcare, tackling inequalities in access and enhancing productivity and value for money. This is needed for neuroscience care as the traditional delivery of neuroscience care is inefficient, outdated and expensive, and can involve complex referral pathways and long waiting times. In preparation for the formation of the integrated care system (ICS), a novel innovative collaboration across multiple NHS trusts developed across North Central London in 2021. We developed a model where neuroscience specialists engage in collaborative care with clinicians outside the specialist hospital setting. Pivotal to the pathway is a multidisciplinary meeting, and collaborative working enables joint clinical reviews, diagnostics and medication initiation. This innovative collaboration has already significantly improved access, addressed inequalities due to borough variation and enhanced the delivery and quality of neuroscience care in our ICS. It is a translatable model that can be adapted to suit other regions in the UK. It fulfils many of the objectives of the integrated care system and these benefits are seen without the need for significantly more resource.Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

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