Developing place-based partnerships in Lancashire and South Cumbria

‌The board of NHS Lancashire and South Cumbria made a decision to align the place-based partnerships to the four local authority boundaries based on a paper presented at the board meeting on 27 July. This decision was taken to promote and enable deeper integration and collaboration with health and social care in order to improve population health, hospital flow and discharges into the community.

The role of place-based partnerships is integral to the future of the Lancashire and South Cumbria system achieving a collaborative approach to health inequalities and the wider determinants of health for our communities throughout the life course.

Please find below a link to a full stakeholder briefing regarding the review and the decision made, alongside a set of frequently asked questions, which aims to give colleagues and stakeholders answers to queries they may have.

What do we mean by a ‘place-based partnership’?

A place-based partnership is a collaboration of planners and providers across health, local authority and the wider community, who take collective responsibility for improving the health and wellbeing of residents within a place. Most people’s day to day care and support needs will be met within a place and delivered in neighbourhoods.

Our partnerships will create a feeling of belonging to a place, where all partners are valued and respected, and mutual support is offered to all partners. This will be particularly significant in challenging times. It is important to acknowledge that residents are co-partners in the continued evolution of place-based partnerships, and that social movements in communities can increase people’s ownership of their own health and wellbeing and mobilise communities to support each other.

The common purpose of a place-based partnership is to enable collaboration that will address specific place-based challenges and deliver within each place the component parts of the integrated care strategy.

In August 2022, four directors of health and care integration were appointed by the Board and executive team of the ICB for Lancashire and South Cumbria, in collaboration with the four upper tier local authorities; Blackburn with Darwen, Blackpool, Cumbria and Lancashire.

The new directors are:

Claire Richardson.png

Claire has over 20 years' experience of leadership at operational, strategic and executive levels, in jointly responsible roles across the NHS and Local Government. She has spent much of her career working in Blackburn with Darwen and across Pennine Lancashire. Currently Claire is Director of Strategic Commissioning and Director of Adult Social Services (DASS) at Rochdale Borough Council, where she leads the development the Integrated Care Partnership with a strong focus on improving outcomes and reducing inequalities for residents as well as being responsible for Adult Social Care, multi-million-pound joint budgets, a large staff team and improvement of health and care services. 

Claire is passionate about improving the lives of local communities. She brings experience of building strong partnerships across health and care for adults and children, developing and delivering ambitious plans for transforming local health, wellbeing and care services, and improving outcomes and experience of our residents.    

Karen Smith.jpgKaren is currently director of adult social services at Blackpool Council and has worked for the Council for 21 years in adult social care and policy roles. Karen will be retaining her statutory director of adult services role and combining with health, through this role.

Amongst her existing responsibilities, she is strategic lead for the integrated community learning disability service, and leads the council's input to hospital discharges through the integrated transfer of care hub as well as the integrated bed based intermediate care service at the ARC, reablement at home, and the council's input to mental health services. Karen is responsible for the council's own in house care services as well as external care providers; she has a lead role in market management and supporting quality in the regulated care sector on behalf of both NHS and local authority commissions. These are all areas where better outcomes are achieved for Blackpool's population when the NHS and Social Care work together.

Karen also has extensive experience working in the voluntary sector, for both Citizen’s Advice and Shelter’s Housing Aid Centre. She is co-chair of All Age Autism Board, chair of Fylde Coast Health and Social Care Career Academy, co-chair of Blackpool Autism Partnership and Blackpool Learning Disability Partnership

Karen was born and brought up in Blackpool and, after 10 years away, returned in 1992 to live, work and raise her family here. She is a Team GB middle distance triathlete, an avid live gig goer and a season ticket holder at Blackpool FC.

Jane scattergood.jpgJane qualified as a registered nurse in 1990, a midwife in 1992 and a specialist community public health nurse (health visitor) in 2002. 

Jane was awarded the title Queens Nurse in 2019 and is an Honorary Member of the Faculty of Public Health. She sits on the Fitness to Practise panel of the Nursing and Midwifery Council and is a standing member of the NICE Quality Standards Advisory Committee. Jane has a special interest in maximising the contribution of nursing, nurses as leaders, public health nursing and professional regulation and discipline.

Jane brings expertise in public health interventions for the population, particularly in the fields of maternity, early years and population screening programmes and has a special interest in quality assurance, quality improvement and demonstrating the impact of strategies and interventions. Jane is Chair of ICON, a national programme to drive down the incidence of abusive head trauma in infancy.

Jane has led the Covid-19 Vaccination Programme in Lancashire and South Cumbria. Jane lives in South Cumbria and had worked clinically for many years in Barrow-in-Furness; in the community, in out of hours primary care and in acute care. Jane was a volunteer custody visitor at Barrow police station on behalf of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Cumbria and now sits as a member of Cumbria Constabulary’s Ethics and Integrity Committee.  

Louise Taylor.jpgLouise is currently executive director of adult services, health and wellbeing at Lancashire County Council and chair of Adult Social Care and Health Partnership for Lancashire and South Cumbria. Louise will be retaining her statutory director of adult services role and combining with health, through this role.

She has 25 years’ senior leadership experience, including 11 years’ experience working at director level in a local authority. She is statutory accountable officer for adult services for England’s fourth largest county council.

She has delivered strategy and change programmes and played a key role in the Lancashire Resilience Forum during the Covid-19 pandemic, which co-ordinated services across health, local authorities and the voluntary sector.

Louise is Lancashire born and bred and in her leisure time she reads, walks with Dave the collie and practices Pilates. Louise is a member of the Chorley and Leyland Methodist Circuit Leadership team.

Louise expects to take up post once she has appointed a deputy in the county council.


The document entitled “Integrating care: Next steps to building strong and effective integrated care systems across England”, published by NHSEI in November 2020 states that:

“Every area is different, but common characteristics of the most successful are the full involvement of all partners who contribute to the place’s health and care; an important role for local councils (often through joint appointments or shared budgets); a leading role for clinical primary care leaders through primary care networks; and a clear, strategic relationship with health and wellbeing boards.”

The core aims of a place-based partnership are to: 

  • Improve the health and wellbeing of the population and reduce inequalities.
  • Provide consistent, high quality services that remove unwarranted variation in outcomes.
  • Consistently achieve national standards / targets across the sectors within the partnership.
  • Maximise the use of a place-based financial allocation and resources.​​​​​​

Next steps

We will continue to keep colleagues, partners and members of the public informed about any developments as early as possible.

If you have any questions, please contact healthier.lsc@nhs.net

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