Vanguard evaluation: Northumbria Healthcare

Edge Health worked with the Northumbria Foundation Group Acute Care Collaboration (ACC) Vanguard to provide an evaluation of the activities they had undertaken over the previous two years of funding, and recommendations for the future.

Throughout 2015 a total of 50 ‘vanguards’ were chosen by NHS England to lead on the development of new models of care to act as blueprints for the rest of the NHS to follow. One of these 50 was Northumbria Foundation Group, which sought to build an evidence-base around new support and service models.

The evaluation sought to cover a wide range of activity, over two years, and provide meaningful and actionable conclusions which could be applied to the wider NHS.

A senior team from Edge Health interviewed and undertook qualitative and quantitative evaluation of activity across workforce, operational models and clinical change. Each scheme was appraised individually, with key themes and lessons drawn out that were relevant both within Northumbria and more widely across the wider programme.

The final conclusions were fed back to both the local teams where they were well received as a thorough backwards-looking evaluation with actionable insight going forward. The evaluation was then also fed back into the overall national programme.