Ninety per cent of people accessing healthcare do so in primary and community settings. The Department of Health’s Transforming Community Services (TCS) Programme aims to improve community services so that they can provide modern personalised and responsive care of a consistently high standard. The department has made £4m available in 2009/10 to support the programme which has a vital role to play in delivering the ambitions of High Quality Care for All. The programme offers the opportunity to make changes in those community services which have most contact with patients, users and the public.

The TCS programme has published a series of transformational service guides covering six service areas. They set out ambitions, taking action and measurement of the achievement and link with, should be read in conjunction with the quality framework/quality indicators.

Transforming services for health, wellbeing and reducing inequalities
Date: June 2009
Author: Department of Health
Summary: This guide shows how all community practitioners can maximise the impact of their clinical encounters with people in local communities to help them improve their health. It demonstrates how practitioners can use both existing and new skills to make every interaction with their patients contribute towards better health outcomes overall.

• Download the report (PDF 1MB)

Transforming services for children, young people and families
Date: June 2009
Author: Department of Health
Summary: The health of our children and young people is central both to their own opportunities in life and to the wider health of our future society. This guide will enable practitioners to deliver the best support to parents, and to children themselves. It will support delivery of the Healthy Child Programmes for all children and, when they need additional care, ensure that this is based on high quality evidence and best practice.

• Download the report (PDF 264KB)

Transforming services for acute care closer to home
Date: June 2009
Author: Department of Health
Summary: This guide on acute care supports frontline clinicians in providing the public with the type of service they want – care delivered as close to home as possible. It is a practical tool to ensure that this type of care is of the highest quality, based on evidence and best practice. It supports innovation and new approaches that will enable acute care in the community to be a real alternative to the hospital.

• Download the report (PDF 1MB)

Transforming Services for People with Long Term Conditions
Date: June 2009
Author: Department of Health
Summary: This guide is a practical tool to enable practitioners to work with people with LTCs. It will support them in the design and delivery of effective care which enables people to stay as well as possible for as long as possible while being in control of their own condition.

• Download the report (PDF 1MB)

Transforming Rehabilitation Services

Date: June 2009
Author: Department of Health
Summary: Rehabilitation services cover a wide range of essential support, from short interventions to longer term support for older people. For example, they help adults return to work after an illness and older people to live as independently as possible. This guide is a practical tool to enable practitioners to design and deliver effective care which allows people to regain and maintain their health.

• Download the report (PDF 1MB)

Transforming End of Life Care

Date: June 2009
Author: Department of Health
Summary: As people approach the end of their lives the availability of high quality, accessible care enables them and their families to make important choices about how they want to be cared for and their place of death. Competent and compassionate care is critical to allow patients a dignified death and giving families support in bereavement. It should be of the highest quality regardless of diagnosis and whether it is carried out at home, in a community hospital or another setting. This guide is a practical tool to ensure that this care is based on high quality evidence and best practice.

• Download the report (PDF 1MB)