While progress has been made in recent years to improve support for people to self-care for minor ailments on a national level, including through the 2023 Delivery plan for recovering access to primary care, supporting and encouraging self-care at a local level is also vitally important. Across England, Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) are taking proactive steps to identify and address local issues and gaps in services and to undertake projects that aim to improve support for and promote self-care.
To support ICSs in learning from examples of best practice, this compendium outlines case studies from ICSs across the country that have successfully implemented new initiatives to empower their local populations to self-care for minor conditions. Highlighting learnings and top tips to help leaders and project managers to design and implement their own successful self-care initiatives, the compendium shines a light on work and projects that have successfully sought to:
• Enhance understanding of self-care among the public and NHS staff
• Empower people to self-care
• Tackle digital inequalities
Outlining each project’s background, impact, challenges and learnings, the compendium seeks to provide a blueprint for other ICSs on how they could undertake similar projects to reduce the burden of minor ailments and self-treatable conditions in their own area.
