Emerging from another extremely challenging winter where record demand levels have been accentuated by industrial action and last-minute policy interventions, health and care systems are already positioning to meet the next range of challenges.

While managing growing demand and a turbulent operating environment is too often the status quo for systems, the 2023-24 financial year also brings significantly straightened financial circumstances and aggressive savings targets for integrated care systems.

In this context it is understandable for systems to bunker down, slow change activity, and focus on their core offers. However, IMPOWER's experience and recent track record shows that it is possible to positively influence demand, deliver consistently good outcomes, and achieve substantial financial benefit.

Being shortlisted for four Management Consultancy Association (MCA) awards, two of which are for our projects in Manchester and Lincolnshire, demonstrates the impact we deliver with our public sector clients. Our work with Manchester Local Care Organisation resulted in the average length of stay on wards dropping by 1.5 days, together with a 49% in ward staff's understanding of strengths-based practice. Targeted work in the Lincolnshire system resulted in a £3.2m cost avoidance benefit, increased discharges across multiple wards, and resulted in an additional 120 surgical admissions avoided in a month.

While a lot of change in the health and care system focuses on longer-term structures and commissioning intentions, IMPOWER's Valuing Home approach is embedded with frontline intermediate care workers – social workers, doctors, nurses, therapists – to positively alter patient outcomes on a daily basis. Given the daily level of activity in acute hospitals, the change impact is rapidly apparent, enabling a speedy assessment of which interventions are working and enabling scaling at pace.

Crucially, IMPOWER's approach has delivered financial wins for all system partners – ranging from enabling acute hospitals to remove escalation beds, to local authorities having lower package costs following a hospital episode and period of intermediate care.

Rapidly releasing benefits buys systems the breathing space to effectively deliver medium-term interventions – setting up integrated intermediate care teams that can easily access cross-system resources, establishing more resilient reablement services, and moving to an outcome-led providing model. Delivered concurrently, systems are able to meet both immediate and future planning horizons.

Although winter may feel a million miles away, now is the time for systems to act – a proactive and targeted multi-partner approach delivering tactical improvements aligned to strategic intent can deliver benefits in weeks, while validating strategic direction.

Ben Evans, Director at IMPOWER

This article is sponsored content for The MJ