East Cheshire NHS Trust and Stockport NHS Foundation Trust are working together to understand how some health and care services could be improved and sustained in the future.

The trusts have a long and successful track record of working together in collaboration and many patients move between services at both organisations to receive their treatment and support as well as from other NHS trusts in Cheshire, the Manchester area and some parts of Derbyshire and Staffordshire.

We believe there are opportunities to strengthen our work together, and develop new models of care and ways of working to deliver health services that:

• deliver better outcomes for patients
• give staff greater flexibility to develop their skills and experience
• attract staff to work with us and stay with us
• ensure high-quality and sustainable services for the communities we serve
• make the best use of available resources.

East Cheshire and Stockport clinicians have worked together to develop a Case for Change to sustain and improve local health services.

The Case for Change has been supported by the organisations that funded many of the services (formerly NHS Cheshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and Stockport CCG).

Together the four organisations carried out a listening exercise with local people, patients, carers and health staff to hear their views about what works well and what could be improved in the services.

The report of findings and what people told us will be used to inform the next stage of the process as we begin to develop solutions.

The Case for Change is supported by NHS England and NHS Cheshire and Merseyside and NHS Greater Manchester ICB.

The two trusts, working with the ICBs, will now further engage with local people and partner organisations to share the challenges facing the services and gather their views on how care could change and improve to ensure services are sustainable in the future.

Those views will help clinicians in the ten services to develop a range of options to address the challenges. If any proposals may result in significant change to delivery of the services then a period of consultation would be carried out, in line with legislation, to gather views before any proposed change is carried out.

At this stage, no decisions have been made and we are at the formative stages of developing solutions to the problems we face.

You can find out more information at Home - Local voices