What is ELIC?
ELIC stands for East London Integrated Care
We are an innovative social enterprise in East London, called City & Hackney ELIC Society Ltd, created with the objective of supporting GPs and other primary care staff to work together to develop high quality services. We believe we are one of the first new social enterprise organisations actually established and supporting GPs.
At present we cover the area served by City & Hackney Teaching PCT
We plan to become a GP Commissioning Consortium in 2013
- The City & Hackney ELIC Society is registered under the Industrial & Provident Societies Act 1965 - we were registered in July 2006 and our registration number is 30104 R
- Our VAT number 906 1457 36
WHO ARE WE
ELIC is a membership organisation. Local members of the public along with doctors and nurses can become members and work together to improve services
- we have over 250 GPs, Practice Nurses and Practice Managers as members
WHO’S PART OF ELIC
- ELIC covers a population of 220000 people registered with 32 practices in City & Hackney.
WHAT ARE THE KEY FEATURES OF ELIC?
ELIC is
- A not for profit organisation – a Society for the Benefit of the Community
- An umbrella organisation to enable GP practices to work together and collaborate
- A clinical commissioning organisation
- Led by local GPs and other primary care clinicians
- Strengthened by community ownership and participation
WHAT DOES ELIC DO?
So far we have
- Developed a range of new care pathways - for example haematuria, post menopausal bleeding, menorrhagia, headaches, Urinary tract infections, rectal bleeding
- Supported practices to develop and implement their PBC business and savings plans
- Supported practices to deliver over 2.6m PBC savings in Hackney since 2006
- Commissioned a range of new services at Homerton Hospital
- Supported practices to provide a range of new community based clinical services
- Helped establish interpractice services and referrals
WHAT’S THE ORGANISATIONAL MODEL
We are both a mutual organisation -which means that we are led by our constituent members: GPs, primary care staff and local people – and a social enterprise whose objective is not to distribute profits but to reinvest any surpluses we make to improve the health of the populations we serve.
ELIC is governed by a Council, made up of elected representatives of local GPs, Practice Nurses, Practice Managers and the public. Its day to day operations are directed by 5 GPs and a Chief Executive who are accountable to the Council
WHY WORKING TOGETHER?
Most GP practices are small – the largest we support has 14000 patients but many are between 2000 and 7000 – and this can make it difficult for an individual practice to develop the kind of services needed by patients.
We believe the strength of general practice comes through greater collaboration:
- The government’s vision and policy for the future of primary care will be easier to achieve through a larger collaborative structure than by individual practices working on their own. It is becoming increasingly important for practices to share services to make the best use of scarce staff and resources and ensure first class clinical quality
- A collaborative structure provides a support and developmental mechanism to local practices - enabling them to work together, share good practice, agree common standards and provide mutual support to each other - and therefore more equitable high quality services for local people
- A collaborative structure also makes it easier to engage in partnership working our partner organisations and therefore provide the kind of “joined-up” services which patients need. It makes sense to link and deal with one organisation and one way of doing things, rather than 50 individual practices.
- For PBC to work practices need to collaborate to successfully shift services and resources into the community in order to share and provide new clinics – a “critical mass” is needed if these are to work effectively.
- By working together and representing a large group of practices and patients, we believe we are likely to have much greater influence in discussions with secondary care colleagues – and fragmentation through different service models and standards can be avoided
- Common protocols and processes for the management of certain conditions help to ensure that health inequalities can be reduced as practices will be providing the same services to the same high quality standards
This isn’t about merging practices – individual GP surgeries will remain as the “front door” to the NHS. But what will change are the working arrangements “behind the scenes” which will improve services for patients and help practices to continue to develop and thrive
To find out more about ELIC please contact us via the contacts page