News / New sustainability vanguards to test clinical and back-office partnerships

Launching the fourth and final vanguard programme, NHS England, the NHS Trust Development Authority and Monitor said the aim was to enhance the viability of local hospitals through formal shared working arrangements between clinical specialists. Efficiency could be improved by sharing back-office administration and management, they added.

The new vanguards would build on the recommendations of Sir David Dalton’s review on organisational reform, released in December.

While the 29 vanguards announced previously are concentrating on moving specialist care into the community and integrating services, the national bodies said that the new sites would focus on promoting collaboration between acute providers to enhance their financial sustainability.

In the light of the findings of the Dalton Review, these new models may include greater use of clinical networks across nearby sites, joint ventures between NHS organisations, or the delivery of specialist single services across a number of different providers.

NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens (above) said: ‘Rather than automatically assuming that centralised, bigger is better, we want to test new ways of sustaining local NHS hospital services, with more sharing of medical expertise across sites, and more efficiency from shared back-office administration.’

Monitor, the NHS Trust Development Authority and NHS England will support providers of acute services to develop new arrangements that can be replicated across England at scale, he added.

Invitations are being sought from all providers of acute services, including small hospitals. Applicants will be expected to demonstrate how their proposals will help promote the health and wellbeing of the populations they serve and promote efficiency. They will have to show how their plans will put patents at the centre of services and increase the quality of care.

Paul Dinkin, Monitor’s lead for the new models of acute care collaboration and a provider sustainability director, said the new vanguards would be supported to rethink their clinical models beyond existing organisational boundaries or their local health care system.

‘Ways of preserving local access to sustainable high-quality services and reducing variations in the quality and cost of care may be through innovative forms of accountable clinical networks, creating chains of multiple NHS organisations or setting up speciality NHS franchises,’ he added.

NHS Providers director of policy and strategy Saffron Cordery said high-quality hospital care would always be needed.

‘In the context of rising demand, operational pressures and increasing provider deficits, ensuring hospitals remain sustainable and viable is essential over the next parliament,’ she said.

The closing date for applications is the end of July and the programme anticipates announcing a small number of vanguard sites by September.