How can voluntary organisations influence and shape health service transformation?

One of our partners in the Health and wellbeing alliance, Lev Pedro who works for NCVO, has written a blog on how voluntary organisations can shape the transformation of our health services.

Charities and social enterprises can support the planning and delivery of publicly funded health services in lots of ways – from gathering user insight, to codesigning services, to actual service delivery. And those are all aspects that were endorsed and encouraged by the 2017 national review of the voluntary sector’s role in healthcare delivery. But beyond this, what are the opportunities for charities to influence and shape service strategy and transformation at a high level?

NHS England has created 44 sustainability and transformation partnership (STP) areas. They bring together local organisations to redesign care and improve the health and wellbeing of local communities. The most mature partnerships, of which there are currently 14, have evolved to become integrated care systems (ICS). In these systems, NHS organisations take collective responsibility for managing resources and using them to improve the quality of care and health outcomes for their residents. They work in close partnership with local government and others in the community. Every part of England will be covered by an ICS by 2021. What interests us at NCVO is how the voluntary sector can meaningfully contribute to service and system transformation, and not just fulfill a ‘community involvement’ tick-box. We’re firm believers that public services work better when charities and social enterprises are involved.

To read the full article please visit blogs.ncvo.org.uk/