Our aim is to improve adult care information across the UK. The Adult Care Information Network enables participants to contribute to common themes and learn from other parts of the UK about what issues, solutions and ideas they have.

The network meets every three months around the UK to share issues and approaches, 'work in progress' and solutions. Learning from similarities as well as differences helps the four countries to work together to develop practical solutions that will improve adult social care information, and ultimately, the care delivered across the UK.

Our objectives

To create a sustainable UK-wide network to:

• share ideas, experiences, dilemmas and opportunities in the use of information in adult social care
• share understanding of current and future developments in information, in both social care and at the interface with other services
• identify similarities (and differences) in approaches and priorities across England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales
• consider aligning information initiatives and workstreams where this is possible
• consider whether commonality of data sets would be useful
• agree areas for action and develop plans for taking them forward, jointly where appropriate.

A focus on adults

The network focuses primarily on adult services, including joint working between health and social care. Members have made links with the childrens services information network in order to learn from their initiatives.

Next meeting:

The next ACIN meeting will be in Leeds on Wednesday and Thursday 2nd and 3rd December 2009 at the Leeds Novotel. The subject for this event will be confirmed shortly.

Our evening meal will be held at a very nice Italian bistro over the road from the hotel - PRIMO Ristorante

Papers and reports from previous meetings:

Cardiff - 16 June 2009

• Mental Health;the development of information in primary and community care
• The post-meeting report

Edinburgh - 11 February 2009

• Managing long-term conditions across health and social care - including the positive contribution of information (pdf 280KB) in Edinburgh on 11 February 2009 is now available.

Want to get involved?

The Adult Care Information Network doesn't have a permanent membership. Some people have attended every meeting, some come on board when we discuss areas of particular interest to them.

We want to be inclusive, and are keen to expand the network to include as many people as possible. All you need is to share our common interest in improving adult social care information across the UK. The network includes informatics professionals, policy specialists and people implementing care on the ground.

To get involved, please contact your relevant country lead, listed below.

Country leads

England

Kate Anderson, The NHS Information Centre

Wales

Howard Teague, Welsh Assembly Government

Scotland

Margaret Quinn, Information Services Division (ISD) Scotland

Northern Ireland

Eugene Mooney, Department of Health & Personal Social Services, Northern Ireland

For general information about the network, please also contact Linda Phipps (llphipps@aol.com)

For feedback and suggestions for the ACIN website, please contact enquiries@ic.nhs.uk including reference 'wrabin/comms'