PLANS to combine Oxfordshire’s healthcare system with two other counties have been considered by county councillors.

Proposals for an Integrated Care System covering Oxfordshire, West Berkshire and Buckinghamshire were discussed by Oxfordshire County Council’s cabinet on Tuesday, October 15.

A report to the meeting described how the new system would see NHS trusts across the three counties work with local councils to improve health care.

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Oxfordshire first took steps towards working with the two other counties’ healthcare systems in 2016, when a partnership called the Sustainability and Transformation Partnership was set up.

The overall aim of this was to improve health care across the three counties.

The Integrated Care System is now working on a five year plan, with aims including recruiting more staff and preventing illness from the earliest possible point.

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The final version of this plan is set for publication by the end of November, detailing how councils and health trusts will work together.

Plans for the ICS were met with some concern from Liz Brighouse, the head of OCC’s performance scrutiny committee, who said the system ran the risk of enforcing ‘top-down’ change, when there had been promises of grassroots involvement.