Activities in the United Kingdom

UnitedHealth Europe, a wholly owned affiliate of UnitedHealth International,has positioned itself as a leading company in the United Kingdom for services focused on improving the case management process of high-risk individuals living in the UK. In the UK, UnitedHealth Europe works with primary care trusts, strategic health authorities, practice-based commissioning groups, social enterprise companies, and the Department of Health on programmes designed to deliver sustainable improvement that are tailored to the requirements of each individual organisation.

Our purpose is to help the NHS and European health services meet and exceed the rising expectations of patients while keeping health services affordable and reducing inequalities in health. We achieve these aims through combining our international capabilities with in-depth understanding of the NHS to provide management services, tools, and, where appropriate,clinical care, that will deliver rapid large scale and sustainable improvements for patients.

The services that we have provided to the NHS to date draw on a range of our competencies:

• Improving the commissioning and planning of health care.
• Delivering new models of primary care.
• Improving the care of patients with long-term conditions, at all levels of risk, and patients with complex conditions such as cancer.
• Providing information tools and services that provide high-quality, appropriate and timely information to support improved decision making.

Developing new models of primary and ambulatory care

Health care improvement in Europe depends on strengthening care outside of hospitals. In the UK, we are working on new models of care that will develop the skills of staff and use technology more intensively and effectively.

Supporting patients with long-term and complex conditions

Health care systems worldwide have been designed primarily to manage care for the patients with acute problems, but most health care is now concerned with patients with long-term conditions.

UnitedHealth Europe has worked and is working with Primary Care Trusts and strategic health authorities to improve the care of these patients. A sophisticated information tool ranks all the patients in a community by level of risk so that proactive interventions can be accurately targeted. The most frail patients can be enrolled in case management programs that have been shown to improve their health and satisfaction with services and reduce costs through avoiding inappropriate care.

On behalf of the Department of Health, UnitedHealth Europe has developed a program to improve the care of patients with cancer, coordinating their journey through the complexities of the health care system.