NHS partnership working and improvement; we've been here before

A number of large scale programmes are running in the NHS in England where communities are getting together to improve health and social care services. The projects have a wide membership from mostly statutory public sector organisations but also some in the voluntary sector. As some of the strategies sounded familiar I checked the Department of Health website.

I was involved in partnership working in the NHS in the mid and late 1990's. At that time in England there were also Healthy Action Zones which seem very similar to many of the programs underway at present. It seems to topic is coming round again but with a new language and consequently a delay in making changes. There are many papers and documents available form around 2002 - 2004 which have self-assessments, methods, best practice examples, case studies and similar. I find it so disappointing that those who are responsible for the spread of good practice and large scale change feel the need to continue to reinvent wheels - thus not practising what they preach.

If you are interesting in learning what has gone on before and in adopting and adapting existing ideas for large scale change then try out these papers from the Department of Health:

Working in Partnership; developing a whole systems approach (notable because it covers productivity - and this was 2002...)

Governance in partnership checklist of good practice

If you only want what is new then try
Working with Stakeholders which is 2010