Delivery of a system-by-system evaluation to understand progress ICSs have made

Tender description

The NHS Long Term Plan sets out the ambition that Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) will eventually cover all of the country, making shared decisions with providers on how to use resources, design services and improve population health. To understand the progress being made, an annual system-by-system evaluation will be carried out. So far, the NHS England and Improvement Primary Care and System Transformation (NHSEI PCST) Evaluation and Metrics team have planned and executed a pilot evaluation in-house with 4 ICSs in the last financial year. Based on the findings and lessons learnt, further evaluation has been planned as follows: — the ICS evaluation will be rolled out to all ICSs during 2019/20 (approximately 14-18 ICSs expected), — the evaluation will be carried out in 3 cohorts over the year in line with the current and new ICS waves, — the evaluation will have 6 phases, following a rapid-cycle-action approach: 1) Mobilisation; 2) Evidence gathering; 3) Analysis; 4) Reporting; 5) Dissemination; 6) Action (system, regional, national). In order to provide both the necessary capacity and expertise to deliver this strategic commitment in year, the NHSEI PCST Evaluation and Metrics team need to procure external support for a national and independent evaluation. For each system the evaluation will consist of 10-15 semi-structured interviews with system stakeholders and a survey with 20 — 30 people who are at the ‘coal-face’ of delivering system plans — development and transformation. The individuals will be identified by the systems themselves. Individual system reports will be produced and shared with systems alongside a collated synthesis report, bringing learning together from all the systems. The learning from this process will be used to co-design system support offers on any key themes that emerge — at system or national level. A series of case studies will be developed to support spread and adoption.