As part of the government’s drive for seamless care, 14 pioneer sites are piloting different approaches. Louise Hunt visited one in Greenwich, south east London

By 2018 the government expects integrated health and social care to become the norm in England. From next April a £3.8 billion pooled budget called the Better Care Fund will be launched to support service redesign for integrated care.

The overall aim of the integration policy is to shift more care into the community to address the challenges of an ageing population by preventing delayed discharges and avoiding emergency hospital admissions.

Across England, there are as many different approaches to attaining this holy grail as there are interpretations of the word integration. Nursing Older People visited one pilot site in south east London to explore how integration works in practice and what effect it is having on community nursing services.