An Integrated Care Curriculum Framework: Developing a curriculum framework for undergraduate health and social care education within Integrated Care Systems

Background: The formal implementation of Integrated Care Systems in England from July 2022 offered various opportunities for enhancement of life outcomes for underserved groups, including addressing health and social inequality and personalisation of care. To harness these improvements, the future health and social care professional workforce, trained within university pre-registration courses, require specific educational interventions around integrated care and practice within Integrated Care Systems. This project sought to address the lack of available interventions within the literature through the development of a tailored educational framework. By provision of the Integrated Care Curriculum Framework, the project develops programmes of theoretical and practice learning experiences within services providing interprofessional and integrated care. Approach: The project sought to develop an Integrated Care Curriculum Framework for all undergraduate health and social care education at the project site university. An action research approach was utilised to develop the curriculum framework in a multi-stage process. A rapid literature review was undertaken to identify evidence available for educating health and social care students in integrated care and Integrated Care Systems. This review was followed by a thematic mapping of professional standards and health and social care course learning outcomes, to identify the requirements of achieving successful practice. Student evaluation was subsequently undertaken of the mapping outputs and perspectives on effective practice within Integrated Care Systems. Based on these findings, the framework was successfully compiled in accordance with the identified learning requirements into a useable model for development of both theoretical and practical learning in integrated care and Integrated Care Systems. Results: The completed curriculum framework consists of 8 domains, each containing the required competencies to achieve the domain outcome, aligned to successful practice within Integrated Care Systems and interprofessional working to provide integrated care. The completed framework demonstrates the overall thematic outcome for the domain and the learning outcomes required for health and social care students to attain proficiency within the domain. The framework is centralised by a commitment to person-centred care as a hallmark of effective practice within Integrated Care Systems. The framework is now being utilised across the Faculty of Health and Social Sciences at the project site university to structure educational programmes and strategy for interprofessional and practice-based learning, evidenced within an initiative to place nursing students into social care placements. Implications: The framework addresses the current lack of interventions designed to train health and social care students for future practice within Integrated Care Systems in England and the requirements of professional education for achieving this in undergraduate courses. Future development of the framework includes evaluation of implementation across the Integrated Care System and the effectiveness of interprofessional practice learning experiences.