What is Strategic Commissioning?

We understand that it can often be a challenge to apply strategic thinking to standard commissioning and brokerage models and you may struggle to have the time to implement these changes, this is why we have developed commissioning software that builds strategic thinking and methods into the system. You can tackle wider goals and targets such as patient placement timings, referral targets, assessment completion timings, and accurate care and quality goals.

In this article, we will explain how implementing and conducting your commissioning and brokerage services strategically can improve long and short-term results for improved care services across the community.

We will provide you information on the different frameworks that the public sector are using and how to implement strategic commissioning successfully by using our Access Adam Care Commissioning tools and solutions.

Start helping your local authority and NHS department today to improve and achieve strategic targets both locally and nationally for faster and improved care services.

What does Strategic Commissioning mean?

Strategic commissioning builds upon current commissioning practices for a more efficient quality service. It focuses on defining and measuring outcomes for both now and the future.

Initially it is a term that sounds quite complicated to implement, but strategic commissioning is simply a mindset and process of applying a results driven focus, to help meet overarching targets and goals using analysis and forecasting. This data then allows you to invest in the most needed areas and make more informed data driven decisions to budget costs and resources efficiently and improve the wellbeing of the residents in your area further.

Why is strategic commissioning important?

Strategic commissioning is important as it puts your communities’ health and wellbeing at the forefront of every decision made without compromising on the quality of care delivered. It uses data and intelligence to look at sustainable ways of delivering care and support across the local area, and better equips local authorities for the demand in service both now and in the future. This is turn, allows teams to adapt easily to changes outside of their control such as the Covid-19 pandemic.

The process of strategic commissioning allows the correct quantity of resources to be allocated to services in a local area allowing departments to concentrate on more preventative and early intervention services to improve outcomes further. When done correctly, this allows both local and national targets to be achieved such as ICS (Integrated Care Systems) targets and enabling a joined up care approach across care services.

Strategic commissioning also helps individual teams within a service run more efficiently saving time, cost, and resources. For example finance, brokerage, and commissioning teams can gain visibility of the actual care provided for accurate billing and forecasting. This in turn, allows trends to be highlighted earlier if care needs updating. At the Access Group our CM (Care Management) software is comprehensive and proactive through automated contract monitoring such as sending automated alerts to all stakeholders when any issues arise.

In our Access Adam Care Commissioning platform this is done by automatically processing invoices and adjusting to any changes accordingly, such as if an individual urgently needs an additional hour of care, this can be spotted and adjusted instantly. This increased visibility allows trends to be spotted earlier and highlights if an individual’s care needs adjusting.

Why is strategic commissioning important for healthcare services?

Not only does strategic commissioning support departmental goals but overall strategic goals that coincide with the NHS’ 5 to 10 years digitalisation plan. The NHS Long Term plan sets out the importance of technology and how over the next decade they will provide digital tools to give people more control over their health and wellbeing. Strategic commissioning helps ensure these targets are met and helps put provisions in place to support individuals to learn how to use these new digital tools.

Strategic commissioning is also important to help staff be more efficient and reach a variety of targets including referrals and quality improvements. Another significant type of target it helps to achieve is sustainability. The NHS are currently working hard to become the first national health service to be net-zero.

Their Greener NHS plan explains their target of being completely net-zero across all their services by 2045. Strategic commissioning helps prepare for this ambitious target, by helping communities plan and execute changes to be more sustainable in their health and social care services by directly outlining provider requirements. Using commissioning technology is just one way services can seamlessly be greener and help reach sustainability targets.

To ensure strategic commissioning is implemented successfully in healthcare services without limiting the quality of care delivered, we have worked with NHS England and are aware of the national targets that local authorities must meet, and we can provide tools to make this process easier. One of our biggest adaptations to our Access Adam healthcare platform has been including automated reporting which aligns with patient level data set requirements for NHS Continuing Healthcare.

This ensure that Clinical Commissioning Groups can meet all the reporting requirements and our in-built measurement tools eliminates time spent manually going back and forth and spreadsheet checking. Through this we ensure that all parties using the system are secure and up-to-date to make more informed decisions based on the real time data integrated within the system.

We have made sure our platform integrates with SPINE to make the management of caseloads across multiple departments easier. It allows faster placements and a full end-to-end process for continuing healthcare and community care service commissioning. Our platform therefore, caters and supports overall strategic targets regardless of the size of your Integrated Care Board (ICB) or Integrated Care System (ICS) and the number of providers you work with.

Why is strategic commissioning important in care services?

As well as strategic commissioning helping to improve outcomes for NHS organisations it also helps to improve outcomes services commissioned by local authorities including home to school transport, temporary and private housing, and social care.

Strategic commissioning is important in social care services is it allows local authorities to tackle a number of different challenges that can arise. Major concerns such as juggling limiting budgets and high demands are challenges that local authorities face across all their care services.

Implementing strategic commissioning therefore, can help by adapting their strategies to overcome and support these wider challenges and goals.

1. Enhances Compliance

One care service which can be more streamlined by implementing strategic commissioning is temporary housing services. In recent years there has been many changes to benefit rules and cuts in funding, and because of this the demand for temporary accommodation has increased but the supply has decreased.

With over 90,000 households being allocated temporary accommodation by the end of September 2021, Housing Associations stopping their offer of temporary accommodation has made this process more challenging.

 

WREN, one of our customers at Access Adam Care Commissioning, has found adapting digital technology to their overall strategy very beneficial. Using our Housing Management System and our in-built regulatory compliance stops non-complaint landlords placing bids until their regulations are updated and registered safe, meaning the only landlords an individual can be placed with are fully complaint ones.

Implementing strategic commissioning within temporary housing services allows information and resources to be shared about both compliant and non-complaint landlords across multiple areas, meaning authorities can work together to supply the required housing to individuals and families.

This allows local authorities to make more informed decisions and place those in need in accommodation which fits their needs such as near to hospital services or local schools. Many of our customers are also using the system to implement private accommodation as part of their temporary accommodation strategy for better long-term stability, removing individuals from the homeless cycle by placing them in more long-term housing.

2. Offers Full Visibility

Strategic commissioning can also help streamline care services by offering visibility to the provider market. For example, in home-to-school transport services local authorities need to have visibility of the market to ensure all requirements are met, including any additional special education and disability (SEND) needs.

 

This has been particularly successful for Milton Keynes City Council, who used the Access Adam Transport platform to gain full visibility of their routes to allow them to invest further in their transport strategy to improve route planning – saving time and costs.

Through this process local authorities can share information and resources, create new innovative ways to improve their service, whilst reducing costs and keeping a high quality service. Having a stronger governance and understanding of the market councils can accurately predict longer term finances and ensure no child misses out on any educational opportunities.

Sutton District Council has found adopting new strategies and having open information on supplier positions in the route bidding process beneficial, as it has increased price competition to help identify the true cost of provision. Through this our Access Adam Transport solution has helped them generate over £683,000 of savings that have been redistributed to other children services to improve outcomes further.

3. Helps integrate changes across all care services

A final reason why implementing strategic commissioning is important in care services is that it helps implement and align improvements and processes across all care services. This is important because it creates a complete eco system strategy allowing data and resources to be shared, to reach and exceed targets, and improve the overall wellbeing of your community.

Using digital tools that help you share this information is essential to allow strategic commissioning to be implemented effortlessly across a local authority.

For example, using demand modelling technology can help councils prepare for future demands more efficiently and be better equipped in ensuring there are enough spaces, beds, and places in care homes, children’s homes, and temporary accommodations. This also allows the full individual journey to be tracked and audited within the system, ensuring they received the correct care, the cost of service and if or when any additional care could be required. This is especially powerful for home care services by helping to give the individual more control and independence of their own care while ensuring they are correctly cared for and are safe.  

By having digital tools that examines the social care landscape as a whole, it can help oversee the real cost for provisions of services and identify any bigger challenges other local authorities are experiencing. It reveals quality providers and those that require improvements or are experiencing a drop in care quality. This allows councils to work more closely with providers, building a better relationship and supporting providers to improve overall quality across the area. Through data integration, local authorities can see CQC ratings for social care providers within the system and build upon this with their own reports and notes. By doing this it can ensure your local authority is better prepared and can prevent any additional issues that may arise or limit achieving your targets.

At The Access Group our PAMMS (Provider Assessment and Market Management Solution) therefore offers a powerful commissioning toolkit which manages quality assurance, compliance, risk, spend, capacity and demand to allow your local authority to improve their care quality, mitigate risks of provider failure, and be better prepared for future demand to improve your outcomes further.

 

How can you implement strategic commissioning?

Commissioning is an integral part of providing high quality services and is something that has to be done. Strategic commissioning can be applied to and built upon multiple different commissioning models and works to improve and support processes currently in place. Digital technology solutions such as Access Adam Care Commissioning and our PAMMS and CM Software can support this implementation via an end-to-end process led platform, automated activities, data and reporting tools and more. 

When beginning your strategic commissioning journey we recommend building upon the commissioning cycle which consists of 4 elements – Analysis, Planning, Implementation and Review.

1. Analysis – Understand the challenges your teams are facing and any targets where you are underperforming or would like to improve. For example: Is manually processing slowing down the allocation of a service? Are you struggling to identify which providers offer a particular set of skills to deliver a specific requirement of care?
2. Planning – Develop a realistic project plan that addresses key areas identified within your analysis. This project plan will have staff buy in, implementation support and return on investment accurately. We recommend working with a partner who understands your unique challenges to develop a system or service which suits your needs.
3. Implemention – Work with your staff to support them in the implementation of any new process or technology while ensuring services are delivered as planned to reach the targets that were set out in the commissioning strategy and project plan.
4. Review – monitoring the impact of services to analyse the outcomes achieved for continual improvement.

At Access Adam Care Commissioning we have been working hard to add additional functions to our platform to allow local authorities and NHS teams to experience all of the benefits possible not just in health and social care but in any public service or procurement activity.

For this to happen, you must assess your current market and decide on clear goals that you want to achieve. Once this happens we can work collaboratively with local authorities, NHS CHC teams to understand the challenges you are currently facing and create a strategic project plan to achieve your wider goals, overcome these challenges and improve outcomes in the future. By working with your teams at every step of the process, we can effortlessly adapt our software to cater to your needs as they change.

How to implement strategic commissioning within the different commissioning models?

Strategic commissioning for a Dynamic purchasing system (DPS)

Applying a DPS model allows the onboarding of multiple providers at any given time to help encourage fairer pricing, de-risk your market, and set standard requirements across the entire market. The biggest challenge with this type of commissioning model is tracking and communicating with each provider so that an individual is placed with the service that fits their requirements. It can often be difficult to monitor compliance requirements and audit an individual’s journey. This lack of visibility, can affect the data you receive, slow down placements, and impact the quality of service provided.

By implementing a strategically focused commissioning system and process, you can gain greater visibility of the market to have both more choice and more control when commissioning services in your area. The data provided will reveal where care is lacking, this could be from a geographical perspective or a provider consistently providing a low level of care, to allow you to allocate more resources to areas struggling and make cost effective savings based on the trusted data.

Strategic Commissioning for a set Framework Model

Similarly, applying strategic commissioning to a Framework Model can help to gain more control and set standard pricing across a number of providers. Often one benefit from using a Framework Model is that you can build closer relationships with your providers to help improve the quality of services delivered in a local area. 

Implementing strategic commissioning to this model can often be a clearer process as there are less providers to contend with. This model can bring some added risks, for instance if a provider goes bust or is struggling with cash flow issues, you may not be able to use their services anymore but will have to wait to onboard a new provider. By implementing tools that give you more visibility of your providers, enabling you to work with them, you can work to mitigate these issues earlier and support your providers. Reducing the risk of these circumstances and giving you more time to prepare.

Summarising what are the benefits of strategic commissioning?

Strategic commissioning helps reach overarching targets for local authorities and NHS organisations whilst improving patient outcomes, and when done correctly, can also deliver more benefits for a local community including:

• Strong governance and discipline to accurately predict longer term expenses
• Facilitate joint proactive problem-solving and innovation practices
• Implement demand management and service delivery disciplines
• Refine project, program, risk management, contract management, and service delivery skills
• Improve patient outcomes by helping staff work more efficiently to meet their targets and allow individuals to have more control over their health and wellbeing
• Reduce costs in running services
• Finds more sustainable ways to reach both departmental and overarching targets including the greener NHS targets

To discover more about how technology can help improve social care commissioning watch our webinar today and see first-hands the benefits our commissioning platform can have on your local authority. 

For more information on how our Access Adam Care Commissioning software can help make strategic commissioning easier and more beneficial for your local area. Discover the variety of commissioning modules we offer that can help your local authority regain control and achieve better results. Why not contact us today and find out more.