The Wessex Partnership

Supporting and accelerating change across health and social care organisations in Wessex

  1. The Partnership

The Wessex Partnership is made up of

  • Health Education England (Wessex)
  • Public Health - Public Health England (South East)and Directors of Public Health from Hampshire, Southampton, Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight local authorities
  • South, Central and West CSU
  • Thames Valley and Wessex Leadership Academy (TVWLA)
  • Wessex AHSN
  • Wessex Strategic Clinical Networks and Senate
  1. Our shared purpose

We recognise that partnership working underpins all successful improvement, and the requirements for transformational change across the local health and care system will be best enabled through focussed, aligned effort particularly given the complexity of the challenge.

We will work in collaboration, wherever appropriate, to provide support to system leaders to transform and sustain the local health and care system. With our combined knowledge, skills and people, we can offer more comprehensive and integrated support.

Our aim is to provide services at the right time, at pace and using all the skills and expertise our organisations have in a combined manner to ensure that the output we deliver is effective, value for money and patient focussedand greater than the sum of the parts.

We recognise at the same time that accountabilities and responsibilities of individual organisations remain. Each of our organisations individually have a ‘business as usual’ role to maintain where we may work independently. We commit to avoiding duplication of effort and resource by maintaining an awareness of each other’s work.

  1. Skills and expertise

While we share many capabilities, each of the members of The Wessex Partnership brings distinctive specialist skills.

  • Health Education England (Wessex) – Workforce planning, labour market analysis, role design, curriculum development, brokerage with educationproviders
  • Public Health – Southeast – and DPHs – Population surveillance, evaluation of effectiveness, health economics
  • South, Central and West CSU – Programme Direction, analytics, communications and engagement, financial modelling, access to unique advisory frameworks
  • Thames Valley and Wessex Leadership Academy – Behavioural change programmes and leadership and organisational development
  • Wessex AHSN – Evidence led implementation, spreading innovation at pace and scale, industry relations, quantitative and qualitative research
  • Wessex Strategic Clinical Networks and Senate – Clinical expertise and engagement and facilitation of service and outcome improvement programmes

There are a number of other organisations such as the National Institute for Health Research Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care (NIHR CLAHRC) Wessex, NIHR Clinical Research Network: Wessex, South of England Procurement Services (SoEPS) and the sustainability teams (previously NHSIQ) that we will continue to engage and work with.

  1. Principles and values

In working together, we commit to working in a positive and open minded manner. We will trust and support each other as part of the partnership and ensure we are open and honest.

  • We will act for patients, the population and the system as a whole
  • We will work together, wherever appropriate, to ensure value for money
  • We will deliver what we commit to and draw on support from each other and others as required
  • We will seek to maximise opportunities within the system and consider what skills and expertise our partners can bring to add to value to specific pieces of work
  • We will be honest with each other, saying what we think courteously and with respect
  • We will act with integrity and behave and speak with consistency
  • We will communicate effectively to maximise the benefit of joint working and to ensure that those partners not involved in specific pieces of work remain informed
  • We will communicate openly about concerns issues and opportunities in relation to the agreement.
  • We know that all organisations are working within resource constraints and therefore we will be honest and say when we are unable to support a piece of work
  • We will work with each other to seek the support of our boards and governing bodies to help us work in this way, whilst minimising the risks to each individual board or governing body
  1. How we will work together
  • We will share our business plans and other relevant plans and understand common areas of work
  • We will meet monthly to continue to build our relationships and an understanding of our collective work programmes, skills and expertise.
  • We will provide aninformation sharing report updating on key areas of work ahead of this meeting
  • We will also send emails to the group to update on key meetings or other information that would be more helpful to share immediately
  • When discussing work with systems and internal programmes of work, we will also consider who else should or could be involved from the partnership and raise this with the relevant partner organisation(s)
  • We will use the regular meeting to discuss this, or if it needs more urgent attention, email will be used and each partner commits to responding in a timely way
  • Where there is a financial implication for work being undertaken, the Group will agree in advance how this is to be funded and by who. Where a client is required to provide funding, this will be discussed through one point of contact on behalf of the group
  • We will keep our organisation and teams within it informed about the partnership and the work being undertaken such as joint programmes of work
  • We will continue to develop and embed our collaboration and consider which staff within each organisation could meet regularly to progress areas of joint working or on a task and finish basis as appropriate
  • Where we need organisation approval for work or decisions made if relation to joint work, we will ensure that this is actioned in an effective and timely way so that pace and progress is sustained
  1. Meeting arrangements
  • The group will meet on a monthly basis and these will be set up 12 months ahead
  • The group has no formal or delegated authority. It is intended to enable closer collaboration and understanding of the organisations’ skills, expertise and programmes of work.
  • The meeting will be chaired by the Chief Executive of the Wessex AHSN
  • Each member will commit to attending the meeting wherever possible to provide continuity. Where a member is unable to attend they will send a deputy
  • Secretariat for the meeting will be provided by the Wessex AHSN
  • Documentation will be circulated no later than 2 working days before the meeting
  • Each member will contribute to the information sharing report as set out in section 5 ahead of each meeting
  • Other partners and stakeholders will be invited to attend meetings as required
  1. Agreement and review

We will formally review the agreement and the principles within it annually. We will review progress quarterly in the first year and amend as determined by the groupto ensure its effectiveness.

Name/Title/Organisation / Signature / Date
Bill Gillespie
CEO, Wessex AHSN
Keith Douglas
Managing Partner
South, Central and West CSU
Ruth Monger
Local Director - Wessex
Health Education England (Wessex)
Caroline Chipperfield
Director,Thames Valley and Wessex Leadership Academy (TVWLA)
Michael Baker
Deputy Director of Healthcare Public Health,
Public Health England South East
Sallie Bacon
DPH Hampshire
On behalf of Directors of Public Health from Hampshire, Southampton, Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight local authorities
Lucy Sutton
Associate Director for Clinical Networks and Senate, NHS England South (Wessex)
Liz Mearns
Medical Director
NHS England South – Wessex

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