Partnering for improvement Approaches to inter-organisational quality improvement in the English NHS

In recent years the English NHS has focussed on understanding why its providers have failed to consistently achieve high standards in patient care and safety. Key enabling factors have been identified, including: positive and enabling cultures, strong and engaged leadership, constructive influence from national bodies and incentive structures. In response to this, the CQC, TDA and have introduced a ‘special measures’ programme for those NHS and Foundation Trusts who have serious quality, safety and efficiency failures.

These ‘special measures’ trusts must cooperate with a number of interventions including accepting support from a ‘buddy’, undergoing a ‘transaction’ with another organisation (e.g. being ‘acquired’ by a stronger organisation or developing a new entity through merging), joint ventures and federations and other more informal quality improvement collaborations between trusts.

While there continues to be ongoing discussion regarding the different partnering arrangements as a means to improve quality, there is a lack of evidence regarding how these varying arrangements impact in practice and how key pitfalls can be avoided.

This evaluation aims to further understand what can be learned from other contexts regarding inter-organisational partnerships in their facilitation of quality improvement and to guide development of policy and practice in this area. In addition, it also aims to document and characterise types of partnerships across NHS providers. 

The evaluation will incorporate the following:

• Scoping of literature & interviews with key stakeholders
• Case studies of partnering arrangements involving both senior and clinical staff
• Analysis of key quality measures across sites

Contact details

For more details about this project, please email Robin Miller at the University of Birmingham.