This report highlights the wide-ranging benefits of providers collaborating at scale, achieved through establishing strong and trusted relationships, engaged leadership, and shared goals and objectives. Across the country, provider collaboratives are proving themselves as one of the most important vehicles for collaboration and delivery by expanding diagnostic capacity, tackling long elective waits and reducing variation in care, to improve the experience of patients.
Trust leaders across all sectors – acute, mental health, specialist, community, and ambulance – have a range of views about the benefits that can be realised in their local contexts, but almost all share a common sense of opportunity to drive change and deliver benefits for local communities. The diversity in approaches taken by provider collaboratives and their achievements comes as a result of an open policy framework, which encouraged and supported providers to focus their efforts on where they could see the greatest benefit to their system, patients and communities. Trust leaders have seen the potential to improve care and services by standardising approaches, addressing unwarranted variation, bolstering service resilience, reducing inequalities of access and outcome, and working differently with partners such as social care and primary care services.
In the context of a tightening financial picture in which providers are being asked to deliver more with less resource, provider collaboratives demonstrate the value of collaborating to maximise return on investment, leverage economies of scale and to generate needed efficiencies.
With significant change, uncertainty and transition reshaping the relationship between trusts, systems and the centre, provider collaboratives will play an important role in delivering on the government's three shifts and the forthcoming 10-year health plan. Provider collaboration, whether at scale, operating at Place or through integrated Neighbourhood teams will be key to making the changes that patients and politicians want to see.
There is a continued need from collaboratives for peer learning opportunities, development of case studies and shared best practice. Trusts are committed to collaboration and realising the benefits they can bring, and they need the opportunity to access the right support that will help collaboratives continue to realise their potential to make a transformational contribution to care in their systems.