Abstract for: Tackling multi-sectoral problems with System Dynamics – exploring whole systems solutions to support health and social care

Full title: Tackling multi-sectoral problems with System Dynamics – exploring whole systems solutions to support health and social care integration in the UK. The Dynamics of Care (Springer) sumarises two decades of modelling. A key theme is how practitioners and people with lived experience cope in the face of challenges that often stem from the system failing to adapt to changing population needs. The health system is a victim of its own success; more people survive into old age with concomitant increases in prevalence of long-term conditions and complex care needs, just as the working-age population shrinks. We characterise the still hospital-centric, congested health system as a set of interlocking archetypes (elaborated by EW in a more recent paper). ‘Delayed discharges’ persist as the indicator of a maladapted ‘balance of care’, daily causing a chain of bottlenecks all the way back to queuing ambulances unable to transfer patients. We briefly point out various models taken from the book to illustrate how relevant classes of model (sub-models or Stella ‘modules’) can be combined: capacity-constrained service pathways, representations of acute, degenerative and cyclical health conditions, ageing chains, workforce dynamics, and financial flows. These come together in our current social care model illustrating that ‘you do not need to model the whole system to take a whole system view’. Learn more: https://www.midlandsdecisionsupport.nhs.uk/training-events/insight-2022-day-2-understanding-the-links-between-delayed-discharges-and-hospital-congestion/