International Foundation for Integrated Care (IFIC) round up 2023

Find out more about our work in 2023 with IFIC.

IFIC is a global community of academics, policy makers, people with lived experience, professionals, managers and organisations involved in implementing people-centred integrated care. IFIC Scotland convenes a national network of partners that support a  shared mission: Co-creating a healthier future with individuals and communities by developing courageous and compassionate leaders and practitioners with the knowledge, skills and confidence to design, deliver and evaluate people-centred integrated care.

Here’s an update on collective efforts during 2023 to Connect, Empower, Inform, Inspire and Enable people centred integrated care to improve population health.             

Connect

Participants from 27 countries joined six Integrated Care Matters webinars featuring local and international examples of practice. We also hosted seven online forums and hybrid workshops for seven international communities of practice coordinated by IFIC Scotland. IFIC Scotland partners warmly welcomed visiting colleagues from Queensland, Catalonia, Malta, Isle of Man, China, Ontario and Canberra.

Empower

Our series of virtual roundtables and blogs have helped to amplify the ALLIANCE’s call for a human rights based, non-discriminatory participatory ethos that values and learns from experts by experience and views all partners as equals. This approach was adopted in our joint workshop on the National Outcomes at the 2023 ALLIANCE annual conference.

Inform

Conference contributions in Scotland, Sweden, Flanders and Malta shared our learning on integrated care. We published five new papers, submitted four book chapters and curated 16 thematic flash reports. Our published evaluation of proactive telecare in Scotland, led by UWS in collaboration with the ALLIANCE, was funded by the Scottish Government and the Digital Health and Care Institute.  We are proud to be a knowledge partner for Compassionate Inverclyde; our third report highlighted the remarkable social value realised from this award winning social movement.

Inspire

48 experts from different sectors, including experts by experience, were panellists for four virtual Roundtables in 2023. These offered a safe space for policy makers, senior leaders, managers, practitioners and partners from health, social care, housing, third and independent sectors to explore hot topics in integrated care.  An average of 100 professionals and partners from across Scotland participated in each roundtable.

Enable

IFIC Scotland partners provided cross sector support for IFICs online certificate, summer school and UWS postgraduate programmes; inclusive, accessible learning and development opportunities designed to create a culture of person centred relational practice to improve health and wellbeing outcomes and create health equity. A new partnership kicked off to support Malta’s Ministry of Active Ageing in an ambitious programme of transformation to enable older people in Malta to access care closer to home. This builds on our learning from Reshaping Care for Older People in Scotland, our lead role in the European Joint Action on Frailty 2017-2019, and our joint Frailty Matters project and publications.

IFIC Scotland’s activities are well aligned with the ALLIANCE Academy’s five Ambitions. The ALLIANCE looks forward to continuing to work with IFIC Scotland and UWS in 2024. 

View our collaborative work and resources at: IFIC Scotland Landing Page

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