Shared Purpose This programme supported nine award-holder teams to develop and implement ways for corporate support services and clinical teams to work together to improve quality of care

Aims

Shared Purpose aimed to:

• raise awareness of the role corporate support services can play in improving quality of care
• create examples of best practice in corporate support services and clinical services working together to improve quality of care
• develop the evidence base of what works in improving care by aligning corporate support and clinical services around common quality goals.

Our support was designed to help the teams turn their ideas into successful examples of best practice. It aimed to build the evidence base for what works in aligning corporate support and clinical services around common quality goals.

Projects

Each participating team received £420,000 of funding and a tailored learning and development support package addressing the following areas:

• diagnostic and needs assessment
• learning mechanisms to support knowledge capture
• learning events
• coaching support.

Organisations were expected to continue their work beyond the funding stage.

Our overall aim was to develop and promote ‘exemplars’ that demonstrate the best ways of aligning people in clinical and corporate support services around a shared purpose of improving quality.

Benefits

Shared Purpose was designed to create tangible and lasting benefits to our health care system as a whole. Benefits to the individual participating organisations included:

• benefits to patients and the organisation, through the targeted intervention
• the opportunity to take part in a high-profile programme and provide best-practice examples that will inspire others and generate significant national, and possibly international, attention
• the opportunity to use this project as a catalyst, by building skills and accelerating the organisation’s understanding of, and commitment to, ways of working across corporate and clinical services to improve quality.

Learning and case studies

At our final Shared Purpose programme event in October 2015, we asked our project teams about key learning from their Shared Purpose projects and any lessons and advice they wanted to share with those working in improvement:
 

Shared Purpose - Introductions from The Health Foundation on Vimeo.

Shared Purpose - Learning and Advice from The Health Foundation on Vimeo.

Shared Purpose - Reflections from The Health Foundation on Vimeo.