New community healthcare teams are being set up across Worcestershire with the aim of greatly streamlining the way people are treated.

Councillors who sit on Worcestershire’s Health and Overview Scrutiny Committee heard about the county’ NHS’s plans for Neighbourhood Teams which are already being set up.

There will be 14 teams across Worcestershire.

Seven will be in South Worcestershire - two in Worcester, one each in Malvern, Pershore, Evesham, Droitwich and Ombersley, and Tenbury Wells and Great Witley.

There will be three teams in Wyre Forest – two based in Kidderminster and in in Stourport, and four in Redditch and Bromsgrove, with those towns having two teams each.

Sue Harris, director of strategy and partnerships at Worcestershire health and car trust said: “Health and social care has normally been organised by type of care.

“We want to organise care on neighbourhood lines by population. Mental health care has integrated teams, but we’ve never tried that for older people. We are organising on neighbourhood lines to keep people living as independently as possible.”

The teams will include, at their core, GPs, social workers, nurses, including district burses and matrons, therapists such as physiotherapists and occupational therapists, health care assistants and administrative staff.

They will serve communities of a population of 30-50,000 people

Heather MacDonald from Wyre Forest Clinical Commissioning Group said: “There should be better co-ordinated care for patients and more choice for them to stay at home rather than have t0 travel to a hospital.

“The aim is to also give staff for time to spend on patient care as there should be less duplication.”

One of the key outcomes of the integrated teams is that patients don’t have to relate their symptoms or medical history repeatedly to different practitioners from different disciplines or departments.

Health bosses also hope that it reduces costs for the NHS, reducing emergency admissions to hospital and reduce inpatient stays.

A case study was cited where a newly formed neighbourhood team worked with a woman in her 50s with severe breathing problems and anxiety.. Before the team got involved in October to December last year, the woman went to A&E at hospital 19 times, was admitted 13 times, made a number of 999 calls and had many contacts with her GP and surgery nurse.After she was helped by the neighbourhood team her visits to A&E were cut to seven and she was admitted three times, but had made no 999 calls.

Jane Harris said all the county’s teams would be operating by the end of June and added: “It’s an incremental launch rather than a big bang.”