Consultancy and Advisory Services

We have a deep understanding and experience of the primary and community care landscape to deliver high quality clinically-led primary care and out of hospital services.

We understand that a high quality, accessible and responsive primary and community care offer is fundamental to the effective functioning of any health and care system.

Our  deep understanding of the primary care landscape and development of  strong primary care networks has delivered high quality clinically-led primary care and out of hospital services.

Our approach is to work with the local clinicians, service users, and other partner organisations to ensure the sustainability and development of a vibrant primary care service offer to meet the needs of the local population.

Our experience covers:

• The development of primary care networks (PCNs), federations and alliances
• The mobilisation and implementation of new and innovative primary care service offers
• The design and development of primary care at scale, extended and enhanced services
• Supporting primary care to develop alternative out of hospital services
• Supporting the development of new models of care such as community MDTs based around GP practices
• Supporting integration of services and developing emergent multispecialty community providers
• Commercial understanding of the new GP contract and funding implications
• The role of technology to support effective care in the digital era

Our expertise and skills span across the full spectrum of services for children and young people, adults, and people with dementia, in community, inpatient, specialist and secure settings.

Our team has over 10 years of senior operational management experience in mental health and learning disabilities and has expertise and skills in relation to operational health and care delivery, patient and public involvement, service transformation, engagement, contract management, programme and project management and procurement.

We worked with many NHS and local government organisations across England and Scotland, including CCGs, local authorities, local health boards (NHS Scotland) specialised commissioning teams, mental health trusts, independent sector providers, and the voluntary sector, supporting them to commission and deliver outcome-focused mental health services. 

Our experience means that we are exceptionally well placed to bespoke local solutions to maximise results and help you achieve parity of esteem.

This experience has enabled us to make recommendations for locally-based pathway redesigns that focus on the mental health and well-being of the local population, transform service provision and reduce reliance on out of area admissions.

We have delivered services to clients to support them to create informed strategies and mobilise projects which have delivered tangible outcomes, including: more effective pathways which reduce admissions, length of stay and readmission rates; care closer to home; improved service quality and outcomes for service users; improved relationships between commissioners and providers; improved evidence of clinical decision making; improved measurement of outcomes; and reduced costs through streamlining processes.

We have a strong track record of supporting our customers to effectively respond to operational and in-year challenges and designing and delivering strategic responses to wider system challenges.

We recognise that acute care providers continue to face quality, financial, demand, estate and workforce challenges that need to be addressed in the short term, whilst simultaneously they are working with system partners to transform service provision and ensure long term sustainability of the health and care system.

We have a strong track record working across the acute health and care sector supporting its customers to effectively respond to operational and in-year challenges, in addition to designing and delivering strategic responses to wider system challenges.

Our services will help you address your pressing delivery priorities:

• Patient flow – operational performance, winter planning, activity shift and outreach
• Clinical networks, service and pathway redesign – including analysis, business case development and delivery of transformation
• CIP planning and delivery and cost base analysis
• Whole system strategy, partnership and leadership development, including brokering and facilitation
• Whole system clinical model development, across acute providers and between acute providers and their wider health and local authority partners

We have extensive experience in providing support to help develop and improve Urgent and Emergency Care (UEC) services with individual providers, commissioner and increasingly across health and care systems. We have worked extensively with Integrated Care Systems (STPs), provider organisations and Urgent and Emergency Care Networks to support tangible, sustainable and cost-effective change with a focus on improving the overall patient experience.

Our approach is to support and enable individual organisations to work collaboratively taking a place or system wide perspective and asking all stakeholders to accept and embrace that no single organisation can maintain, improve or deliver an urgent care system in isolation. We believe that only by bringing organisations together to create common goals and objectives, can complex UEC system deliver the outputs that are needed to provide the best possible care to the population it serves.

To enable this cooperative change, we offer the following services:

Strategy Development:

• We support systems, places and organisations in the development of their emergency care plan and UEC strategies to deliver high quality and effective services. Supporting the alignment of the multiple and often  disconnected UEC services we will focus on the key principles for delivery of care, objectives and ultimately the desired outcomes, ensuring that they are aligned with any local, regional or national priorities.
• This would then be developed into tactical strategies to support the delivery of change including areas such as management of demand growth, the development of new models of care and alignment of services.

System Diagnostic and Rapid Improvement:

• We rapidly undertake a diagnostic of current services/systems by triangulating available data sources, qualitative data from services users and staff feedback to help identify key areas for focus and intervention. We can then support the development of rapid improvement plans and the realisation of ‘quick wins’ to support immediate improvement. This could include areas such as DTOCs and discharge processes, care home interventions and GP streaming.

Pathways and Models of Care:

• Using our extensive experience from across the NHS we support local organisations and systems to develop, a bespoke model of care based on strong evidence and existing ‘best practice’. This may range from the development of community or neighbourhood services to enhanced care home support through to ensuring that the maximum benefits are achieved through regional services such as 111 and 999.
• We develop plans for services (new or improvements to existing) and implement and deliver tangible changes working with your teams ‘on the ground’ through to a successful implementation.

 We have a strong track-record of integrating care at system, place, and neighbourhood levels; from supporting the development of Integrated Care Systems to implementing multidisciplinary teams located in neighbourhood hubs.

Working with people at every level, our support is tailored around fostering partnership working and shared accountability.

Our experience has shown that integration will only move as fast as trust can be developed between people and must be supported by collective responsibility and governance to give the structure enabling frontline teams to change the way in which they work. 

We help by developing shared leadership and strategy, establishing formal governance arrangements, and engaging the workforce with the requisite change.

There is a clear recognition that “one size does not fit all” in turnaround to address the current challenges facing health and care systems. We work in partnership with customers to design, build and implement system turnaround that are deliverable, transformative and, most importantly, responsive to customer needs. For example, facilitating system thinking and supporting changes in short and medium savings plans and financial models to encourage cost reduction collectively as a system.

For local health and care economies, moving from vision to reality in delivering true system turnaround and financial benefit requires a phased approach that starts with understanding the cost drivers in the system, taking short term tangible actions, and aligning long-term change and solutions strategically and with quantifiable benefits.

We provide expert support for turnaround both at scale and pace as well as acting in delivery partner role to embed and sustain change and benefits for the long-term. 

Our Turnaround approach:

1. Rapid “As Is” Assessment
2. System Commitment
3. In Year Plan
4. Multi Year Plan