Health chiefs from Rochdale have revealed the benefits of collaborative working in Greater Manchester to a conference of more than 1,000 delegates in Belgium.

Dr Salman Shahid, associate medical director of Great Manchester Integrated Care Board, and a team from One Rochdale Health and Care, demonstrated how they integrated health and social care services to improve the wellbeing of people in the borough and the wider Great Manchester area at the International Conference on Integrated Care in Antwerp.

Dr Kirsty Marshall, Dr Shona McCallum and Alison Kelly highlighted their work on increased patient and public involvement in health and social care services in the region to delegates.

Dr Shahid took to the stage to address the conference on the ‘Integration Continuum’ with his colleagues Sandra Crossdale and Andrew Hulcoop.

Dr Shahid said, “We attended this conference to learn and share experiences of modern age challenges of healthcare systems. We were able to show how hospital, community, GP services and the voluntary sector are all working together, alongside educational and research teams. This collaborative working gives us patient centred care in an integrated healthcare model.

“This conference was an excellent opportunity for us to learn more from colleagues across Europe on how we can further improve our approaches and systems to create an even better health and social care system for our residents,” he added.

Rochdale is one of the ten areas of Greater Manchester which has one of the highest levels of depreciation in terms of health and care inequalities.

Dr Shahid said, “In these three days of back-to-back sessions we learned that it requires a multi-disciplinary approach and valuing all our system contributors, including the voluntary, research and education sectors, who play a key role in tackling long term medical conditions. Patient care is joint responsibility and better integration helps in achieving a seamless health and well-being model.”

One Rochdale Health and Care is part of the wider Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust, which includes Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust (SRFT) and The Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust (PAT). The group delivers healthcare services to more than one million people across Salford, Oldham, Rochdale and Bury, as well as providing more specialist services to patients from Greater Manchester and beyond.