Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Integrated Care System Supporting Collaborative Commissioning. A Learning Laboratory Approach

What was the impact?

Following are some of the key outtakes from the sessions:

• ‘This has brought key strategic leads together to develop one system direction for Best Start. I have already worked with all the colleagues in the room individually, but this has brought us all together to openly discuss our vision and challenges. Time to come together as one, has been key to achieving this.’

• ‘Don't just jump into a piece of work. Take the time to build relationships, ensure you are all on the same page, equally committed (including money), and the approach you choose will deliver everyone's objectives. Getting the building blocks in place is what will make the work successful.’

Key Success Factors

Sarah Fleming Programme Director for System Development – NHS Nottingham and Nottinghamshire said:

“IPC provided impartial expertise which supported system partners to reflect on where we work well together and those areas where we need to focus further efforts. They provided examples of how we could make improvements, acting as a supportive critical friend, as well as challenging us to continue with our progress. This led to us developing a Collaborative Planning and Commissioning Framework which sets out how partners will work together to plan services for our population.

In order to test out the principles in our Framework, IPC worked with ICS partners to collaborate on a range of challenging issues. They effectively brought partners together with a focus on designing solutions to improve population outcomes. Their professionalism, independence and expert knowledge has been invaluable to us in our collaborative commissioning development."

Successes and reflections:

Ultimately, the purpose was to support both individual service areas and the overall ‘systems’ to improve the approach to collaboration. Both colleagues in Nottingham and IPC, despite operational and short-term pressures challenging the capacity to attend the Labs, believed it was worth the effort and energy to understand and improve endeavours to collaborate.

IPC’s view was that the effort colleagues in Nottingham undertook in 2021 to create their ‘collaboration narrative’ through the development of their new commissioning framework, was a crucial step in creating a vision of what this would mean across the partnership.

Finally, we also believe that drawing people together with a specific focus, had a positive impact on understanding the value of how a collaborative approach to commissioning can impact effective service design and the delivery of person-centred, outcome focused services.