The National CCM Demonstrator Research team have just  released a new Community Engagement Report which describes a partnership approach to reaching out and listening to communities within Gwynedd. The report explores with local people how community health and social care services and other community support can help to meet their future needs and increase their quality of life. 170 community members from across Gwynedd shared their views - and the findings (as seen in the report) are now being shared with partners to support service development across all sectors.

The North Wales Demonstrator is currently piloting the Unique Care model of multi-disciplinary team development in four practices - based upon the Castlefields approach to case management. This model includes the use of a validated questionnaire (EARLI) to help identify those at risk of emergency hospital admission. The same practices have also been involved in piloting the PRISM risk stratification tool which also looks to identify patients at risk of emergency admission. This new study will explore user views of both tools, identifying some of their strengths and weaknesses, and comparing the different types of patient identified as at risk. The study should provide findings in late Autumn 2010.

The CCM Demonstrator research team and Swansea University are currently preparing a workshop proposal for the Embracing the Challenges - Changing Conditions event in November 2010. Please feel free to suggest workshop areas of interest (relating to CCM research and evaluation) to mark.kingston3@wales.nhs.uk . The conference organisers are also looking for proposals for other breakout sessions to share good practice and ideas on CCM. Abstracts must be submitted by 8th September 2010 for judging - further details are available from Sue.Roberts@wales.nhs.uk .