Background: The World Health Organization’s global strategy presents compelling evidence for the need to develop people-centred and integrated health services. However, there is a dearth of literature on learning at the macro-systems level focused on ‘place’ that is required to meet these ambitions.

Aims: This article positions place-based learning at the heart of integrated care to contribute understanding of learning for transformation to inform continuous improvement and workforce development. Second, using practice development methodology, it demonstrates how to develop a shared understanding for place-based learning, sustained through a co-created implementation and impact framework.

Methods: Five facilitated co-creation workshops with key stakeholders drew on participants’ collective knowledge, expertise and values to develop a shared understanding and direction. Collaborative themes arising from the workshops were used to populate a concept analysis framework for place-based learning, to identify its attributes, enablers and impacts.

Findings: A shared purpose for and definition of place-based learning resulted, with three interdependent value themes: people-centred learning; cultures of teamwork to enable learning; and networks for learning together. Enablers, attributes and other factors were identified to support successful implementation and evaluation across one region in England.

Conclusion: Place-based learning is a new concept previously undefined in the context of health education and integrated healthcare systems. The insights that emerged increase our understanding about how this concept can support local, national and global strategies, optimising the contribution of learning to integrated health and social care.

Implications for practice:

Integrated health and social care services need to:

• Grow a critical mass of skilled facilitators with the capabilities to integrate learning and improvement with other functions (such as embedded research) so as to develop systemwide
• Enable leaders to create learning cultures collectively with facilitators to increase understanding about the impact of culture on learning and improvement
• Develop indicators of the impact of learning across place

This article by Ruth Germaine, Kim Manley, Kim Stillman and Peter J. Nicholls is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 3.0 License.