Tapping the potential

Tapping the potential is a learning report, researched and authored by NPC for The Richmond Group of Charities. It captures learning from the initial stages of Doing the Right Thing—an approach to building meaningful collaboration between the voluntary sector and public bodies. Insights include success factors for collaboration, consideration of the challenges, and reflections for local and national decision-makers beyond Somerset.

The key messages of paper are:

• 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 health system 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.
• A significant challenge has come, and will continue to come, from the changing personnel and governance structures of statutory organisations and of the Sustainability and Transformation Plans (STPs), Accountable Care Systems, Integrated Care Systems and the initiatives that follow them.
• Voluntary sector leadership can offer both agility and stability to place-based collaborations (such as STPs) in a changing healthcare landscape.

Take a look at NPC’s reflections in our blog Embracing place-based collaboration: Lessons from Somerset

Share your thoughts with us on Twitter via @NPCthinks @RichmondGroup14 using #TappingthePotential

See our previous work with The Richmond Group of Charities.