Our Tapping the Potential report captured learning from the initial stages of our collaborative work in Somerset, including success factors for collaboration, consideration of collaboration challenges, and reflections for local and national decision-makers beyond Somerset. The report was researched and authored by New Philanthropy Capital and was generously supported by Guy’s and St. Thomas’s Charity and the Health Foundation.
Our work in Somerset was far from done, but we'd learned a lot. Some of the headlines will probably resonate with your experiences...
- Coming to collaboration with no pre-conceived ideas about products or providers unlocks a different kind of conversation on all sides.
- Turning an open-ended conversation between the voluntary sector and public bodies into a productive collaboration requires resource.
- Collaboration benefits from bridging organisations – like the Richmond Group – and people who make it their job to connect divergent cultures, languages, and priorities. They can bring people and organisations together by being 'middle out' rather than just top down or bottom up.
- Voluntary sector leadership can offer both agility and stability to place-based collaborations (such as Sustainability and Transformation Partnerships and Integrated Care Systems) in an ever-changing healthcare landscape.
...but Tapping the Potential provides useful learning and ideas for collaboration beyond Somerset.
We held an online learning event in partnership with Kaleidoscope, a social enterprise set up to bring people together to improve health and care.
You can watch the full discussion here.
And a very short summary of headlines here.
You can also follow the conversation on Twitter, through the hashtag #TappingthePotential. Whether you are working in the NHS, voluntary sector, local government, or wider public services, we hope you enjoy this conversation and find our learning useful. It isn't time-limited and is just as relevant to Integrated Care Systems, Primary Care Networks and other collaborations as it is to Sustainability and Transformation Plans. Please do get in touch at any time if you would like to find out more or have a chat about it.