REAL Ltd - Social Enterprise Works

Case Study 3 - East Lancashire Integrated Health Care and Holistic Resources

East Lancashire Integrated Health Care (ELIHC) under its trading name Holistic Resources has been a subsidiary of Rossendale Hospice since inception in 1996, but now a change of strategy has resulted in ELIHC becoming a stand-alone Social Enterprise from April 2006.

As a social enterprise the staff of ELIHC, all qualified therapists and research therapists will be supported by REAL who will provide commercial, financial and marketing expertise to establish a firm foundation on the road to sustainability. Exploiting the intellectual property of the research and activities to date is the biggest challenge.

ELIHC offers orthodox psychotherapy and specialist condition management programmes specifically designed for patients with life limiting or life threatening conditions and they form part of a package of palliative care treatments. It has also conducted relevant research and development work in the field of psychosomatic disorders and life-limiting conditions.
The ELIHC service is recognised nationally and internationally under the generic name of Holistic Resources.
Pivotal to all the work undertaken by ELHIC is the drive to deliver accessible and affordable therapeutic programmes based on research indicating that when patients understand the relationship between mental and emotional stress and adverse physical symptoms and are equipped with the skills to manage stress more effectively, then they enjoy significant improvements to their mental and physical health and well-being.
ELIHC have had a service level agreement with the Teaching Primary Care Trust and Job Centre Plus since November 2004 to provide their cognitive behavioural therapy programme, Help for Health, to people on incapacity benefits through the East Lancashire Pathways to Work pilot, one of 6 pilots in the UK. The results have been such that ELIHC are now contracted to extend these services across West Lancashire as Pathways to Work is rolled out in 2006.

ELIHC also have Service Level Agreements with the Primary Care Trust for people with life limiting disease. Psychological Approaches in Cancer Care is another cutting edge initiative they developed in Rossendale and already disseminated nationally. REAL is supporting its development towards sustainability and to expand its services throughout the UK and overseas.