Three major groups, namely the hospital trusts, general practitioners and social care, must work closely together. Each of these has heads of departments/units. In the acute trusts which I know more about, there are about twenty heads as stipulated in my recently published autobiography, ‘The bugs doctor with a passion for music’.

In each locality, the heads should get together to work out the cost and logistics of providing an integrated service. It is the heads who should be responsible for recruiting and retaining staff. They should be fully conversant with the workload how it is affected by staff study leave and sickness as well as holidays.

The key to the success of the whole project will be the selection and appointment of the right heads of service. The transparency of the selection process should be underpinned by legislation in order to give the necessary confidence to the general public.