Service commissioners and providers are increasingly urged to work together to deliver more integrated care for their local populations, for example through accountable care organisations.
To balance national and local priorities, alongside the transformational journey being undertaken to deliver new models of care, there is a need to build and strengthen the capability and capacity of providers and commissioners to lead transformational change in a complex and changing environment.
Supporting resources
To support the delivery of local solutions, here are links to existing resources, case studies and organisations with expertise to support the strengthening of health systems:
- Do OD: Organisational Development tools and respources. This is the expert resource on organisational development for the NHS, delivered by NHS Employers in partnership with the NHS Leadership Academy. Do OD support OD, HR and workforce leaders to transform systems, and is underpinned by the principles of co-production, creativity, curiosity and courage.
- Communications and engagement toolkit: for teams in system-wide change programmes. NHS Improvement have developed a toolkit for communications and engagement teams involved in health system-wide change or transformation programmes. Click below to access this resource.
Common insights
Supporting providers and commissioners to lead transformational change
To establish and deliver a shared health system vision that meets the needs of a local community, alongside regional and national priorities, requires providers and commissioners to work together through shared governance to shape, own and deliver the strategic priorities of this shared vision.
To enable the delivery of those agreed share priorities between providers and commissioners, performance and financial measures within each partner organisation must align and promote the behaviours that deliver these shared goals.
Where local patient and clinical involvement is not sufficiently sought to shape local health economy sustainability and transformation plan priorities, the achievability of delivering the planned transformation at pace can be limited.
To facilitate commissioning services that are more closely aligned to the needs of local health economies, commissioners and providers should be encouraged to ensure they have strong links into Community Education Provider Networks (CEPNs).
To ensure that commissioners and providers have the information they need to make informed commissioning decisions, there is a need to improve the consistency and accuracy of workforce data available within the system.
To best enable the effective delivery of services, commissioners and providers need to take into consideration workforce capacity and capability when making service commissioning decisions. Having clear roles and responsibilities is essential.
Where high vacancy and attrition rates exist amongst commissioning and provider organisations, improved clarity and definition is required around the career paths and progression opportunities in existing commissioner roles.
There is a need for greater alignment between service commissioning and health education commissioning to ensure that appropriate numbers of professionals are educated and trained to meet future needs. This includes greater links between provider workforce planning submissions (to LETBs) and commissioners’ strategic transformation plans
To best ensure commissioned services meet the needs of local health-economy populations, and deliver the desired outcomes in the future, there needs to be a suitable balance of commissioner and provider time focused on transactional commissioning activity versus longer-term strategic commissioning and planning.