Nursery World - Integrated Working: Hand in hand

New initiatives are bringing together expertise from the health
service, early years sector and care in an effort to improve provision
for children. Katy Morton investigates.

Joined-up working has long been a popular idea in the NHS. Politicians in the 1960s stressed the importance of integration of services, and in the late 1990s Labour said it wanted to break down the 'Berlin Wall' between health and social services. Despite this, little was done to make joined-up working a reality; efforts to achieve it were slow.

Fast forward to the current administration, and there now appears to be a renewed push for collaborative working as pressures on the health service have increased due to a lack of funding and an ageing and growing population.

A number of initiatives have been introduced to join up education, health and care services, with several in the pipeline, while the new Children and Families Act 2014 pushes for integrated working (see box).

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