We helped NHS England roll out a programme of planning support for the increase and improvement of elective care activity at every integrated care system (ICS) in the country.

Background

NHS England has set a national target to deliver 30% more elective activity by 2024/25 compared with pre-pandemic levels, as well as eliminating long wait times.

To achieve this, Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) needed to develop robust plans to ensure delivery of national targets, tailored to their region.

In a CSU collaborative programme, NHS Midlands and Lancashire (NHS ML) worked with South, Central and West CSU (SCW) to provide national co-ordination support and evaluation for this programme.

Action

Our delivery team worked closely with the core national elective programme team, SCW and the NHS England regional teams to scope out the needs of the programme.

After liaising with ICS elective care leads, we identified their specific capability and capacity to deliver elective care plans, ensuring that consultancy packages were tailored to provide optimal support.

We provided risk management, assurance, planning support and budget monitoring throughout, as well as tracking customer satisfaction.

As the programme progressed, we shared best practice and learning among the organisations involved to maximise opportunities to standardise the approach across regions.

Impact

Our expert team of project and programme managers provided both strategic oversight and operational support to NHS England in this complex and extensive programme of elective care planning support.

Our dynamic delivery team enabled the programme to be rolled out at pace, meeting an ambitious national timetable.

Through robust programme management, proactively highlighting risks and identifying solutions, we were able to facilitate consultancy firms to deliver planning support services to every ICS in the country throughout February and March 2022. This was a vital step towards meeting NHS England’s elective recovery target.

“NHS ML were instrumental in helping us to set up and roll out the NHSE planning support programme at pace. They were highly effective in managing multiple stakeholder relationships including external consultancies, NHS systems, and NHSE regional and national teams.

“There was significant complexity and challenge in delivering aspects of the programme, and they not only recognised key risks and issues but proactively identified solutions and resolved issues.

“Without the support of NHS ML, we would not have successfully delivered the programme, and we were very satisfied with the service that was provided.”

Elective Recovery and Performance team at NHS England