Providing capacity and expertise to support a Regional Partnership Board to implement ‘A Healthier Wales’

Gwent Regional Partnership Board commissioned us to help them capture the learning from changes in health and social care practice which had been brought about by the 2020 Covid pandemic

Situation and task
What was the impact?
Key success factors

Situation and task
Situation and task

Supported by the Welsh Government, a nationally coordinated network of Research, Innovation and Improvement Coordination Hubs (RIICH) work to implement A healthier Wales: our plan for health and social care by accelerating the shift toward higher quality and better value services, including new models of seamless health and social care.

In Gwent, the Covid pandemic was the catalyst for significant changes in health and social care practice and policy. One such area of change was the rapid transformation of arrangements to minimise rough sleeping in order to reduce the risk of Covid infection amongst this population group.

Since Gwent’s RIICH had no dedicated staff, we worked alongside the Partnership Board to establish new structures and expertise to complete case studies of practical benefit to decision making bodies during a pandemic which was creating unprecedented pressures.

We interviewed agencies with responsibility for rough sleeping - including health services, local authority housing and homeless services, specialist housing providers, charities, substance misuse experts and specialist service providers - and worked carefully with them to draw out examples of good practice, identify areas for improvement, and ensure that partners worked together using a ‘constructive challenge’ learning approach.
What was the impact?
What was the impact?

We set up and shared learning and analysis with a Learning and Improvement Network for rough sleeping and produced easily accessible learning materials to inform future policy and practice.

Our work was successful in capturing learning from a very fast-paced change in policy and practice. Amongst the findings, we identified a strong view that Gwent had been hugely successful in housing its rough sleeping and homeless population, and that this had also stimulated improved awareness across services areas of the wider needs of this population group that will help sustain positive change post-Covid.

This learning was immediately relevant to partners across Gwent in the next stages of their response to the pandemic and helped the regional health and social care system with investment decisions. Gwent Regional Partnership Board have renewed our contract for 2021/22 to continue supporting the RIICH to identify and evidence good practice which should be sustained.
Key success factors
Key success factors

As an independent, credible evaluator, the Institute gave multiple agencies the confidence to openly engage and share their perspective of an issue that could have otherwise been seen simplistically as a single-issue topic. By undertaking rapid and timely analysis and working in partnership with Gwent colleagues on flexible and relevant learning opportunities, partners could share their perspectives and agree how to move services forward together.