Homelessness and integrated care: an application of integrated care knowledge to understanding services for wicked issues

Homelessness and integrated care: an application of integrated care knowledge to understanding services for wicked issues Michael Clark, Michelle Cornes, Martin Whiteford, Robert Aldridge, Elizabeth Biswell, Richard Byng, Graham Foster, James Sebastian Fuller, Andrew Hayward, Nigel Hewett, Alan Kilminster, Jill Manthorpe, Joanne Neale, Michela Tinelli Journal of Integrated Care, Vol. ahead-of-print, No. ahead-of-print, pp.- People experiencing homelessness often have complex needs requiring a range of support. These may include health problems (physical illness, mental health and/or substance misuse) as well as social, financial and housing needs. Addressing these issues requires a high degree of coordination amongst services. It is, thus, an example of a wicked policy issue. The purpose of this paper is to examine the challenge of integrating care in this context using evidence from an evaluation of English hospital discharge services for people experiencing homelessness. The paper undertakes secondary analysis of qualitative data from a mixed methods evaluation of hospital discharge schemes and uses an established framework for understanding integrated care, the Rainbow Model of Integrated Care (RMIC), to help examine the complexities of integration in this area. Supporting people experiencing homelessness to have a good discharge from hospital was confirmed as a wicked policy issue. The RMIC provided a strong framework for exploring th...
Source: Journal of Integrated Care - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Source Type: research