Stakeholder Message sent on behalf of Matt Hartland and Mark Axcell

As you are aware, health and care partners in Dudley have been working together to establish the best way to continue to deliver services and build upon the good work that DIHC has been delivering since establishment three years ago.  

We wanted to provide you with an update on this work as we move closer to making recommendations to commissioners and the DIHC Board on the future provision of the services which DIHC currently provides.  
 
Whilst future integrated health and care in Dudley is no longer characterised by a standalone NHS Trust (DIHC), the commitment to it is no less. Dudley place partners have been looking at options for DIHC services and have agreed a set of principles as we move to safely transfer services to new providers, these include:   

• There will be no service change for patients, at the point of transfer. 
• Protecting employment for staff will be a priority and we will avoid moving staff more than once. 

• Where there are teams or services that are integrated now, we will aim to retain that integration moving forwards and transfer them together. 
• We will keep talking to you our stakeholders, and to our staff about this work and we will ensure patients are aware of any changes which will be made.

Ultimately, our aim is to ensure that any future service moves create an “equal or better” scenario in terms of quality of care for those using them.  
 
We remain committed to working together with all Dudley partners to create the right environment for improvements to the health of local people. In the longer term, we are confident that Dudley has the foundation to enable this, and we will work to build upon the relationships that exist now to fulfil our ambition for integrated health and care. The first step in that is securing safe and sustainable provision of these services and developing support for the ongoing resilience of primary care.  
 
We are expecting to make final recommendations on the future provision of DIHC services in September 2023 before exploring the options for the organisation itself. As the future becomes clearer, we want to be explicit that we are not planning any redundancies and services will continue for those using them in the same way. If you would like to discuss any of the information within this communication, please do contact us via .  

Best wishes  

Mr Matthew Hartland                    
Dudley Integrated Health and Care NHS Trust                                      
Chief Executive Officer   
                                  
Mr Mark Axcell  
NHS Black Country Integrated Care Board  
Chief Executive Officer                                

Please note: This update follows our previous stakeholder communication which can be found here.