Acute NHS trusts in NWL commit to shared vision for collaboration

Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust is one of four acute NHS trusts in north west London that have set out a shared vision for collaboration and priorities for joint action. Working together as the North West London Acute Provider Collaborative since September 2022, our four organisations have committed to using our collective expertise, resources and relationships to set and raise standards of care, making the best care available to everyone. We also want to be one of the best places to work in the NHS and a global centre for health research and innovation.

We will do this by working with each other—as well as with patients, partners and communities—to establish and achieve the best outcomes, systematically aligning to best practice locally, nationally and globally, and reducing unwarranted variation.

Specifically, by 2027, this will mean:

• Patients will access care sooner. Care will be more personalised and person-centred, with improved and more equitable outcomes, regardless of which trust or hospital they attend.
• Health and care partners will be able to work in a more consistent way with our trusts, with common approaches to communications, engagement and improvement. 
• Staff will be able to move across our trusts more easily, be encouraged and supported to compare data and feedback to drive improvement, and have stronger cross-organisational networks and ways of working.

Patricia Wright, Chief Executive of The Hillingdon Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said: “Collaborating in our strategic approach is an important development for the Acute Provider Collaborative and sets out our combined priorities for the next three years. This strategy will make it clear where and how we can utilise our joint efforts, whilst making improvements as individual organisations, to improve outcomes.”

Matthew Swindells, Chair of the North West London Acute Provider Collaborative, said: “The 2.2 million people living in north west London rightly expect healthcare to be organised in response to their needs, not those of NHS structures. Our strategy takes a significant step forward in putting their expectations first. Building on what our teams have achieved to date, it outlines our focus to deliver high quality, equitable and sustainable healthcare. This is an aspiration which can only be achieved by working together and combining our knowledge, skills and experience.”

Developing the strategy

The Acute Provider Collaborative’s first three-year strategy, published at nwl-acute-provider-collaborative.nhs.uk, has drawn on extensive feedback and insights from patients, staff and partners on the key challenges and opportunities for health and healthcare in north west London. It builds on—and inter-links—with each organisation’s own strategic objectives.

The North West London Acute Provider Collaborative includes Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, The Hillingdon Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust. Together, we manage 12 hospitals, employ 33,000 staff and serve a diverse population of 2.2 million.

The origins of the collaborative precede COVID-19, but it was the sharing of intensive care expertise, vaccine development and the creation of planned care hubs during the pandemic that demonstrated how much could be achieved through more joined up working. As the collaborative has been formalised, we have continued to make progress, including extending a single electronic patient record system across all hospitals to improve care coordination, creating an elective orthopaedic centre to bring together routine orthopaedic surgery to improve quality and efficiency, and developing a network of community diagnostic centres and eye centres to expand capacity and improve access in areas of higher social deprivation.

Implementing the strategy

The strategy will influence cross-organisational ways of working—including existing improvement programmes overseen by lead chief executives—covering quality, finance and performance, people, data and digital, estates and sustainability. We are also creating a new collaborative workstream to improve clinical outcomes. For each of the 28 services, or specialties, that are common to all four trusts, clinical teams will be supported to work together, and with partners and patients, to identify at least one care pathway for focused improvement in the initial phase. We will prioritise pathways with high volumes, significant variation in outcomes, equity or experience, or long waits. The aim is to agree and work systematically towards consistent best practice. For each specialty, we will establish a leadership group made up of staff from across all four trusts, and identify an overall clinical lead, to take this work forward, reporting into one of the four chief executives and the wider acute provider collaborative executive management board.