Redefining improvement to strengthen NHS partnerships
Redefining ‘Improvement’ to Foster Public-Private Partnerships in Healthcare
Within the NHS, quality improvement means making healthcare safer, effective, patient centred, timely, efficient and equitable. It is not a term used to describe an ambition or general way of working, it’s a way of describing robust systems that scientifically test and measure how to get better outcomes.
Over the last decade, I have worked in the private sector supporting the NHS. During this period I have seen some excellent examples of the private sector working with the NHS to improve care and drive improvement. Of particular note was the willingness to work together and innovate to address the challenges of the sector during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite this, there still remains a level of scepticism within the sector of the role of public/private partnerships and often we see barriers to these partnerships rooted in fear of failure and the risk tolerance.
The new Secretary of State for Health and Social Care is already indicating that he wants to encourage partnership working in the NHS in an efficient way, in particular in reference to driving the use of technology in the NHS to improve service delivery.
What role do private organisations play in improving the NHS?
Traditionally and perhaps the most widespread partnerships that drive improvement in the NHS are with consultancy organisations that provide external support with quality improvement methodologies. While the NHS can sometimes be accused of being too reliant on external consulting, if correctly implemented this approach can work well for certain purposes, particularly for adding subject matter experts that may only be required in the short term.
Private providers and hospital groups are routinely used to help meet some of the demand the NHS is unable to address, freeing up NHS resources for the most urgent patients. But this is categorised as coping with demand rather than an option for improvement.
While consultancy is used to using language around improvement, and private hospitals are often contracted to come in to solve a specific challenge, tech companies who are working towards the same improvement goals tend to talk about innovation to describe the same goal. This may be a barrier to the different sectors coming together on improvement because they see themselves as working on different solutions.
If we expand the definition of improvement, I think we will see barriers to private-public partnerships in healthcare break down, and return to the pandemic levels of partnerships faster, with a positive impact on quality.
How can partnerships work in the future?
The challenges the NHS faces over the next decade are well publicised and there is likely to be a continued focus on driving improvement and an increased focus on using technology to do this. It’s crucial we change the perception of public-private partnerships and welcome them if we are to truly drive innovation and improvement in the NHS.
Culturally the NHS needs to embrace its openness to innovation and partnership working that we saw during the pandemic, while accepting that seeing the benefits of this change takes time even with private involvement – we should measure outcomes over the course of years, not months, and commit time and resource to make innovation and partnerships work longer term.
At ImproveWell, our partnerships strategy focuses on redefining improvement so that all organisations can clearly see their role in it. It’s about driving innovation, fostering collaboration, and supplementing services. We also aim to encourage partnerships across multiple organisations to drive improvement efforts. While our partnerships with the NHS are valuable, we are also eager to collaborate with private sector organisations. Together, we can create a holistic and effective improvement solution that drives innovation and helps the NHS be the best it can be over the next 10 years.
By Hannah Campbell, Head of Partnerships at ImproveWell
