NEWS RELEASE

Date:13th May 2013

Patients and carers asked to join the Caring Together Group

“No one seemed to know about her difficulties”! “Should make it easier to see someone I know – I want them to listen to me” “Nobody seemed to know anything about me, my condition or what I needed to help me cope in there” “I wish I did not have to repeat my story time and time again”

Just some of the quotes captured from members of the public in a recent engagement exercise about their experiences of accessing health and social care services across Eastern Cheshire.

The Caring Together programme is inviting patients with a health condition or those carers who look after someone who has a health condition to join the Caring Together Group. Members of the group would be asked to work closely with health and social care professionals and volunteers to help find ways in which care can be better integrated (joined up) in Eastern Cheshire.

The group would be asked to recount their positive and negative experiences of care so as to help form a ‘narrative’ for Caring Together and help the programme use a ‘language’ that is interesting and understandable to all people. Most of all the group would be at the centre of helping to design the way that care is provided.

Sam Nicol, Director of the Caring Together Programme “being informed by our local population to help develop improved ways of providing care is fundamental to ensuring everyone involved in a person’s care – the patient, carer, volunteer, professional - is well informed and working together as one team. I encourage those who have experienced the good and bad in their care to get involved with the Caring Together Group and help us improve services and the way of working across Eastern Cheshire”

Patients or carers who want to get involved will be asked to come to meetings (expenses paid), respond to emails or posted documents, meet for chats and give your views over the telephone. People interested in joining the Caring Together group can do so by calling 01625 242 511 or email . Further information about Caring Together can be found at

ENDS

Notes to editors

  1. The Caring Together programme is the name of the Integrated Care Programme for Eastern Cheshire and it is a large scale programme of work that is looking at ways to achieve the better joining up of health and social care services so that they are better designed and provided around the needs of patients and carers. Better integration means ensuring that all those (agencies and staff) involved in a person care does so in a way that is better for the patient carer and shared important information –so a person does not have to tell the same story to many professional lots of times.
  1. The Caring Together Programme is being led by NHS Eastern Cheshire Clinical Commissioning Group and Cheshire East Council, in partnership with East Cheshire NHS Trust, Cheshire & Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, Cheshire, Warrington & Wirral Area Team of NHS England, the 23 GP practices in Eastern Cheshire, Vernova Healthcare CIC and Crescent Healthcare CIC
  1. You can follow Caring Together on Twitter – @Caring_Together or Facebook Caring_Together for all the latest news
  1. For further information about this press release please contact Matthew Cunningham, Corporate Services Manager, NHS Eastern Cheshire CCG, 01625 663339
  1. To contact the Caring Together programme, please ring 01625 242 511 or email