The grants will be for a partnership of local organisations, working together to improve services for people with multiple and complex needs, so that services are more coordinated, targeted at those with the most entrenched needs and focused on the specific needs of each person.
For example, the Big Lottery Fund would expect to see proposals that built upon the importance of a ‘lead professional’ who could commission joined-up support services for individuals, drawing on the breadth of expertise in their partnership and from other providers as appropriate. Responsiveness to each person’s specific needs was crucial as was ensuring that services would be accessible to service users. This could include the infrastructure and training that supports a lead professional.
The grants will allow partnerships to ensure that service users are at the heart of design and delivery, for example by training and employing ex service users, providing peer – to peer support and developing and managing service user forums.
It is envisaged that the grant will allow partnerships to develop processes for sharing data and undertake joint needs assessments, as well as sharing learning about their approaches to feed into a wider study of what works in supporting people with multiple and complex needs. This learning will be utilised to influence future policy and practice in this work.