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Apologies in advance for a complete absence of cynicism in this week’s column. Normal service will be resumed next week. The jaded, disaffected and world-weary should stop reading now.

This week, representatives of the 16 integrated care pilots chosen by the Department of Health from an original list of 108 applicants came to London for the formal start of the programme.

High hopes are pinned on the project, which will run for two years with a further year for evaluation of the results. Delegates from PBC consortia, PCTs, patient groups and social care organisations were warmly congratulated on their success in making it through to the final round, though the DH was at pains to avoid talk of winners and losers.

This is not just to avoid hurting the feelings of the other applicants, but because a number of pilots, as many of 50 of the original applications, will be taken forward by their local sponsors without the fillip of a national showcase or the support of the KPMG team appointed to help keep the last 16 on track.

The pilots address areas such as dementia, end-of-life care and substance misuse, all of which have proved resistant to conventional treatment – not for want of trying but because the will, the means, the resources, the leadership or the co-ordinated strategy weren’t there. On the evidence available, the pilots will begin life with a plentiful supply of all of the above.

Although they were chosen for their variety, the pilots have some things in common. One is the evident enthusiasm and determination of their participants, their belief in the ability to overcome problems that the rest of us have already stopped trying to solve. Another is congruence of purpose on the part of the different agencies and individuals involved that would be difficult to manufacture.

They share an understanding of the need to balance objective measures of success – improved health outcomes, reduced referrals to acute care – with the subjective, intangible, hard or impossible to quantify but still vital ingredients of patient satisfaction and experience. Underpinning many of the pilots is also a pragmatic recognition of the importance of good IT to any integrated approach.

Asked where they expect to be in two years’ time, every one of the pilots hopes to have improved the lives of its population. Some can quantify this improvement; others cannot. Instead of the glib certainty of predictions that will be forgotten long before the pilots have run their course, they possess something far more convincing and infectious: optimism.

The next New@Networks will be sent out on 23 April.

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