South Central West CSU outlines the work it is doing with its customers
South Central West CSU outlines the work it is doing with its customers
The Five Year Forward View offers clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) and other NHS and social care organisations enormous opportunities to make a real difference to the lives of their patients and populations. Its focus on how local systems will need to be redesigned, through new models of care, to improve integration, quality, efficiencies and outcomes, is a real challenge to both commissioners and providers.
South Central West Commissioning Support Unit (SCW CSU) has always helped customers to develop and manage high quality and cost effective services for patients, and in the context of the Five Year Forward View, is now supporting them in designing and implementing new models of service delivery.
There are a whole range of issues that are important to commissioners in achieving the outcomes, which they aspire to for their patients and population. SCW can help to create the right environment for at-scale transformation by involving the right stakeholders and experts, developing clinically appropriate and evidence-based transformation strategies, applying structured tools and techniques to convert strategies to reality, and accelerating delivery and benefits realisation.
The following outlines initiatives that SCW and customers are working on.
Vanguards
SCW supports a number of vanguard programmes including the Isle of Wight My Life a Full Life primary and acute care system (PACS), South Somerset Symphony (PACS), Erewash multispecialty community provider (MCP), Southern Hampshire Better Local Care (MCP) and North East Hampshire and Farnham (PACS). It provides a wide range of support across these projects, including developing value propositions, logic models, business cases, population data and analysis, financial and activity modelling, interoperability, developing commissioning models, patient and public engagement and communications.
New models of care
Not all transformation programmes carry the official vanguard label. As well as supporting its vanguard customers, SCW is working with a number of other customers who are looking at ambitious new visions of care and how to implement these within their financial constraints.
In supporting our customers with the new models of care, we believe we deliver some key strengths. SCW brings local knowledge and historic intelligence, together with considerable commissioning support expertise. We combine this with the best practice knowledge and expertise we have gained through involvement with local vanguard and other transformational projects in our geography, as well as through our work on other national programmes.
NHS Right Care
Another of the key national initiatives is NHS Right Care, a programme that reflects many of the themes from the Five Year Forward View: value, health outcome, empowering the patient, transforming through systems and networks of care, and the need to drive out variation in quality and health outcomes.
In support of the NEW Devon CCG Right Care programme, SCW has delivered a series of ‘deep dives’ and presentation workshops over the last few months.
Mark Marriott, transformation director at NEW Devon CCG, explains: “The SCW team has been a tremendous help, supporting us as we established our deep dive engagement process for NHS Right Care and presenting initial data, draft findings and final packs to a high standard and on time in a very tight schedule.
The blend of presentable data supported by a full narrative on the findings and a data pack enabling further analysis after the CCG review now forms the basis of our standard approach to delivering a deep dive.
The packs show a range of opportunity by provider, commissioner and the whole system, which is essential when designing an action plan that is both achievable and believable.
Supporting customers
SCW, one of the country’s largest providers of commissioning support, was created on 1 April 2015 by the merger of South, Central Southern and South West CSUs. SCW supports 40 CCGs, GPs, provider organisations, NHS England, local authorities and many other public and voluntary sector customers. It operates across a broad geographical footprint, covering more than 10,800 square miles and a population of 10 million.
The merged CSU has the advantages of being more resilient while still being able to capitalise on local knowledge and direct relationships with customers. Sharing corporate knowledge and innovation from the CSUs is a priority for the organisation, helping it to accelerate local quality improvements.
At the same time, SCW has enhanced its supply chain to increase the breadth and depth of skills and resources offered to customers at local, regional and national level, working with partners from the NHS, private and voluntary sectors.
Future plans
As well as continuing to deliver core services such as contracting, business intelligence, finance, IT, HR, communications and engagement, SCW also supports a range of organisations with short and medium term programmes and projects.
This includes vanguard support including logic models and shadow capitation; NHS Right Care engagement, benchmarking and analytical deep-dives; and major strategic programmes of acute service reconfiguration and supporting financial sustainability.
The NHS continues to face many challenges. We see our role as working in partnership with the NHS in whatever guise it requires to provide the best support possible and improve outcomes and experiences for people using health and care services.
SCW plans to continue to develop its core services to improve the effectiveness and efficiency with which they are delivered. It also plans to grow its consultancy and transformation programme and project services to support customers with key development areas.
The CSU’s strong and extensive supply chain of partners can be quickly mobilised to deliver targeted support when required.
In addition, it has invested significantly in developing expertise to support the NHS through the challenges that exist, particularly in implementing the Five Year Forward View. The areas SCW has invested in are:
- Patient activation and integrated personal commissioning.
- Service redesign and transition management.
- Shared care records and system interoperability.
- Data unification, reporting and intelligence.
- Optimising provider performance.
- Commissioning for outcomes and alternative contracting models.
- Public health behaviour change campaigns.
- Patient and public engagement to support service transformation.
While the Five Year Forward View provides the NHS with a blueprint for the next few years, further changes will always be on the horizon. The challenge of a population that is growing older but not necessarily healthier, innovations in healthcare and the constant challenge of delivering quality and efficient care within a set financial envelope will continue to need innovative solutions.
While SCW continues to support its current customers to deliver today and tomorrow, the organisation is actively horizon-scanning to anticipate what the next key issues might be and the opportunities and challenges they present.
Jan Hull, managing director and Keith Douglas, managing partner, SCW CSU.
