Project · Collaboration
How, when and why inter-organisational collaboration in the NHS works.
A realist programme of work explaining what makes partnerships between NHS providers succeed or fail — from initial theory to evaluation, through the COVID-19 pandemic and the Health and Care Act 2022.
From 2019 to 2021 I was the research fellow on the NIHR HS&DR-funded project "Towards a framework for partnering as an intervention for improvement in the NHS" (NIHR127430) at the Health Services Management Centre, University of Birmingham. Using realist review and evaluation methods, the project built and refined a programme theory of how trust, confidence and faith drive collaborative performance between healthcare organisations.
Alongside the core realist work, I led a qualitative policy analysis of how regulatory reform and the COVID-19 pandemic reshaped inter-organisational relations in the NHS. The project produced a 50,000-word NIHR report, eight peer-reviewed papers, and a practical framework that NHS provider collaboratives have used directly — one Mental Health Provider Collaborative reported it helped them "reach a consensus that we'd failed to achieve for probably 10 months."
Outputs
Publications so far
Funding
Grants in this programme
- 2019 — 2021Towards a framework for partnering as an intervention for improvement in the NHS — research fellowNIHR HS&DR (NIHR127430) · Health Services Management Centre, University of Birmingham
Impact
Reach beyond academia
- Sep 2021Developed a programme-theory-based survey to evaluate the collaboration-readiness of a Mental Health Provider Collaborative in Birmingham, delivering results in a workshopHelped them "reach a consensus that we'd failed to achieve for probably 10 months"
- 2021Presentation to Nuffield Trust & consultants to inform development of Place-Based Partnerships in the NHS
- 2021EHMA Conference presentation and IHPO Seminar SeriesHow and why do inter-organisational collaborations drive performance improvements?
- 2021Blog: Building trust and faith — how can we make inter-organisational collaborations in healthcare a success?University of Birmingham
- Nov 2020EHMA Conference presentationAssessing the degrees and domains of integration in the English NHS