Healthcare Providers

Background

Yorkshire & Humber Academic Health Science Network has been working with the South Yorkshire, Bassetlaw and North Derbyshire (SYBND) Cancer Alliance to support its ambitious plans to improve cancer services for patients living in the area as part of its response to NHS England’s Long Term Plan.

Our work has included:

• Commissioning a deep dive review of current cancer services across the SYBND footprint and mapping these services against current and future levels of demand
• Recruiting a high calibre interim programme manager to support the initial establishment of two high profile projects; developing a Lung Cancer Health Checks programme in Doncaster and a system approach to Rapid Diagnostics.

What we did

Working in partnership with SYBND, our team prepared the invitation to tender for a deep dive review of current cancer services.

We provided support for the interview and selection process and managed the ongoing relationship with the firm chosen to conduct the work.

We also worked on behalf of the SYBND Cancer Alliance to recruit and employ an interim programme manager for the Lung Cancer Health Checks programme through our associate network.

Our impact

Julia Jessop, the Programme Director for the South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw Integrated Care System Cancer Alliance, commented: “We wanted to commission a report that would provide insight into understanding future changes in the types of cancers people will be presenting with and living with and how this would impact on demand for services “

“This would give us the information needed to look at how we can best invest to develop our existing system capacity and respond to the NHS Long Term Plan ambitions”.

“Having met with the Yorkshire & Humber AHSN team, we requested their support as we knew we needed additional resources to help us with this.

“The AHSN team acted as a broker and helped to pull together and issue the tender.

“It was brilliant to have them managing this process on our behalf as we did not have the time or resources to manage the process

“The AHSN people became an extension of our team and ensured there was a continued dialogue with the awarded company to keep the project on track with our ambitious aspirations.

“With regard to the appointment of the programme manager, the AHSN really made this simple for us as they took on the employer’s role and hosted the interim contract.

“This meant we were able to bring someone in really quickly allowing us to be able to respond to the ambitious national timescales.”

She added: “This is the first time I’ve been to the AHSN and they have responded directly to our needs. The team was responsive to our problems throughout this work and really understood how we could work together to drive this project forward.