Welcome to Providers Deliver: Collaborating for better care. This publication marks the start of an important and exciting work programme for NHS Providers, supporting greater provider collaboration. It has been developed in response to our member trusts’ desire for us to help them adapt and evolve as leading players in the fast-changing health and care landscape.
In the coming months we will continue to highlight the benefits of these partnerships, showcasing the breadth of existing practice, and sharing learning to help forge new initiatives and deepen cooperation. We will also continue our work to influence national policy and guidance on provider collaboration, which offers great opportunities for trusts to broaden and develop their contribution as partners working at place, system and pan-system levels.
This is the fourth report in the publication series in which we celebrate and promote the work of NHS trusts and foundation trusts in improving care for patients and service users. Our first Providers Deliver report explored the way trusts have responded to feedback from Care Quality Commission, encouraging great ideas that have improved care. The next in the series, published last summer, looked at new roles for trusts in prevention. Our third report focused on the resilience and resourcefulness that characterised the response of trusts and their staff to the challenges posed by the pandemic.
This time we are focusing on ways in which providers are collaborating to address common challenges, provide more integrated care pathways and deliver more sustainable services. The case studies in this report show how trusts are at the forefront of work to recognise and respond to the opportunities of joint working. They demonstrate once again how, in a time of unprecedented challenge for the NHS, providers are delivering for patients, service users and the communities they serve.
Saffron Cordery
Deputy chief executive, NHS Providers