What are we hoping to achieve?
Our Provider Collaborative vision is to ensure:
1) The best health and wellbeing for our population
This is important because across Lancashire and South Cumbria, deprivation and poor health affects many of our communities and differences in life expectancy and quality of life vary significantly. These health inequalities are neither acceptable nor fair.
By working together, we will...
• improve health outcomes, reduce variation and support the reduction in health inequalities by ensuring everyone has access to the same high-quality care as close to home as possible.
• address some of the serious health issues faced by our communities by supporting the health of our 40,200-strong collective workforce (89% of whom live locally) and connecting, through them, with others.
• be in a better position as a collaborative of anchor institutions to add social value. This includes supporting local jobs, sourcing local goods and services, and working together to reduce our environmental impact.
2) High-quality services
This is important because our services are under unprecedented pressure which risks quality and safety. Moreover, not everyone has the same access to services, and service quality can vary depending on where you live.
By working together, we will...
• develop a patient-focused clinical vision which will outline our shared priorities to improve care over the next decade.
• develop new networked services and models of care to benefit the whole population, which individual trusts would be unable to do alone. We are already making good progress with stroke and community diagnostic services. To read more about individual case studies, click here. We also have plans to develop a clinical network to integrate mental and physical health.
• pool resources to better support fragile services, improving reliability and safety.
• standardise protocols and our approach to quality improvement, reducing variation and improving outcomes.
• recover and restore elective care and improve the performance of emergency and urgent care.
• develop a joint vision for corporate services to ensure these are best able to support patient care.
3) A happy and resilient workforce
This is important because staff are our biggest asset. It is through our colleagues’ great work that we deliver a great service. Our staff are, however, under tremendous pressure. Ensuring their wellbeing is paramount, as is attracting the best talent to come and work with us.
By working together, we will...
• embed the national People Plan and NHS People Promise to improve the experience of working in the NHS for everyone.
• reduce duplication and remove administrative barriers to create more time to focus on further improving our services.
• standardise our policies, working practices and staff benefits so that colleagues have the same high-quality employment experience wherever they work, and can work seamlessly between sites. It will also be easier to offer and receive mutual aid.
• have greater ability for peer support, and the sharing of skills, expertise, and rotas to improve the work-life balance of colleagues.
• create new roles with wider opportunities for career development and succession planning.
• ensure equality and diversity through our recruitment and workforce development.
• work together to present the whole region as an attractive place to work to build a workforce for the future.
4) Financial sustainability
This is important because like health systems nationwide, we are facing significant financial challenges. We need to make every penny count and ensure the best value possible for the tax payer. Ensuring we are financially sustainable means we can continue providing high-quality services to our communities.
By working together, we will...
• develop a clear financial strategy which supports our clinical vision.
• ensure we use our resources in the best way to support improvements in our population’s health.
• do things once, where it makes sense to do so, to reduce duplication and free-up precious resources for patient care. For example, by standardising our policies and procedures.