Measuring What Matters: Understanding Wellbeing and Prevention through Integrated Data

Background: The evidence underpinning integrated care remains uncertain, with numerous examples of evaluations finding little robust evidence of intended impacts on health or reporting conflicting results. Reasons for this include problems with the design and implementation of integrated care initiatives and issues with integrated care evaluations themselves, such as lack of suitable comparator or poorly defined outcome measures. Community Led Support (CLS), developed by the National Development Team for Inclusion (NDTi), has shown that strengths-based, community-focused approaches can improve how people access and experience social care.

 

Measuring the broader wellbeing and economic value of this approach has been an important part of this work, which being preventative in nature has defied traditional service and output metrics. For integrated care systems to move in an evidence-based way from crisis response to community health, resilience, and prevention, we need measures that capture what creates wellbeing, not only what treats its absence. We must integrate these alongside traditional indicators of efficiency and performance.

 

Approach: To address this challenge, NDTi set out to reframe prevention from the absence of crisis to the creation of wellbeing - developing practical ways to measure the positive outcomes that community and early-help work achieve. NDTi co-produced a Wellbeing Framework, which continues to be defined and refined through the experiences of people, practitioners, and local partners. This framework underpins Qrios, a digital system designed to capture anonymised information from good community based conversations, focusing on people’s sense of connection, control, coping, safety, satisfaction, and support.

 

Qrios records the activity and outcomes of the preventative elements of local systems, translating these into insights that show how wellbeing is being created and where additional support may be needed. In doing so, it helps partners understand the value and impact of early, strengths-based approaches within integrated care.

 

 

Results: This approach has enabled local areas to track wellbeing trends, target use of resources, build new partnerships based on need, inform decision-making, and embed prevention as a measurable and valued outcome within integrated care.

 

Early findings show measurable improvements in wellbeing and reduced reliance on formal services within participating areas. Practitioners report greater confidence in demonstrating the impact of prevention, while partners use Qrios insights to align investment, reduce waiting times, and strengthen cross-sector collaboration. The data suggests that when relational practice and digital measurement combine, communities become more resilient and system pressures ease.

 

Implications: This approach provides a practical and ethical model for evidencing wellbeing and prevention within integrated care. By linking data with system learning, it supports the conference pillars of People as Partners, Digital Solutions, and Transparency of Impact. For international delegates, it offers a replicable framework for embedding cultural change and measuring what truly matters - how people live, connect, and remain well - at the heart of sustainable, person-centred care.