Impact: How we unlocked silos in health and social care

The challenge

For nearly a decade the UK Government has been calling for the integration of health and social care services. Breaking through the barriers between local government, health authorities and the agencies commissioned to deliver this care is a huge challenge and needs long-term cultural change. To secure lasting change and embed innovation you need specialist management and you need to understand different workplace cultures and communities of practice.

What we did

Essex Business School academics Dr Martin Harris and Dr Danielle Tucker introduced management techniques and tools to allow real-time monitoring and evaluation of changes and helped embed the new approach to secure on-going improvements in the delivery of patient care.

The researchers brought together directors from across community health care, acute care and social care and helped them work together to unlock the silos and ensure the smooth delivery of vital services to patients.

They were supported to co-design services from the patient perspective; review workplace cultures and communities of practice and promote good practice.

The multi-disciplinary approach to coordinating previously separate health or social care services produced improvements but the academics realised they had to go further to encourage systems-wide innovation.

To encourage even greater innovation and integration Dr Harris organised discussions between senior executives in Mid-Essex hosted at Essex Business School. This led to a new joint venture which took the emphasis away from the way things had been done before and focused on establishing a ‘high-trust’ collaborative relationship and knowledge sharing that remains integral to both organisations. Crucial to breaking down the bureaucratic barriers was sharing techniques for joint working and an evaluation tool designed by Dr Harris to measure progress and success.

Dr Tucker used her specialist expertise on sensemaking and change management techniques. Dr Harris and Dr Tucker introduced the customised project evaluation tool to improve the processing of rapid response, crisis prevention and joint processes of patient referrals. It enabled real-time monitoring and evaluation and was adopted as the preferred method of evaluating the complex organisational change processes. It will inform new ways of commissioning integrated care services in Mid Essex. Dr Tucker also advocated the creation of and recruitment to a jointly funded lead officer post - a boundary-spanning role to promote good practice across the organisations.

In 2020 the team at Essex Business School introduced a management learning tool to capture the steps the organisations had taken to realise the complex systems-wide improvements to patient care. This management tool was embedded in and helped managers from very different organisations communicate effectively with each other, find ways of sharing good practice and ensure they continued to collaborate on redesigning care services throughout the pandemic.

In 2020 the team at Essex Business School introduced a management learning tool to capture the steps the organisations had taken to realise the complex systems-wide improvements to patient care. This management tool was embedded in and helped managers from very different organisations communicate effectively with each other, find ways of sharing good practice and ensure they continued to collaborate on redesigning care services throughout the pandemic.

What we changed

The management and organisational change techniques introduced by Essex Business School academics enabled a shared project culture to emerge, building capacity for collaboration across previously fixed organisational boundaries which has reduced transaction costs that would otherwise have been incurred by contracting out care provision services.

Essex Business School’s partnership with health and social care providers has made new ways of working possible and embedded these changes meaning services are designed more effectively and patient needs are at the heart of service planning. It also paved the way for localised service design that puts patients at the heart.