What's the problem that needs fixing?

Over many years of working with VCSE organisations, NHS bodies and local authorities, we have heard the same conversation repeatedly.  
 

• VCSE organisations hold a wealth of evidence about the difference they make to people's health and wellbeing. 

• Commissioners and system leaders recognise that value, but often struggle to compare, aggregate and use the evidence consistently because it has been collected in different ways, for different purposes and at different levels. 

• The result is frustration on both sides. The evidence exists, but it rarely influences strategic commissioning or system-wide decision making. 
   

That was the starting point for a Shared Purpose learning event that attracted more than 170 registrations and around 90 live participants from VCSE organisations, NHS bodies, local authorities, universities and national organisations across the UK. 

Why did we bring people together?  

We organised the event to explore whether practical solutions are beginning to emerge.  
 

• Are health and care systems finding ways to develop shared approaches to measuring VCSE impact? 

• What could others learn from places that had already started the journey? 
   

We wanted to hear from people who are already making progress, understand what they have learnt and explore how that learning can be shared more widely. 

Why now?

The timing feels right. As health and care systems develop neighbourhood-based models and respond to the ambitions of the NHS 10-Year Health Plan, there is growing recognition that we need a much clearer understanding of the contribution of VCSE organisations to the outcomes the health and care system is trying to achieve. 

What did we do?

We invited Lisa Taylor from the North East & North Cumbria VCSE Partnership Programme and Paul Carder and Pip Goff from the West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership to share their work. Despite developing their approaches independently, to reflect different local contexts, we were struck by the similarities.   
 

1. Neither system started with “What data shall we collect?”  

Both invested significant time engaging VCSE organisations, commissioners and system partners before any framework was designed. In North East & North Cumbria this meant workshops across the region, online sessions, reimbursement for participants' time and structured conversations between the VCSE sector and the Integrated Care Board about what good looked like, the relationships needed to support better commissioning and the role of evidence in achieving it. 

West Yorkshire is following a similarly collaborative approach. Community organisations are helping to  identify outcome measures that are meaningful, understandable and proportionate, with particular attention to reducing administrative burden, for example collecting data naturally through conversations with people, rather than creating onerous reporting requirements. 

For us, this was one of the most significant observations from the event. The engagement was not about testing a framework once it had been drafted, as is often the case. It was a co-design process from the outset. Discussions started with purpose, outcomes and relationships before moving on to indicators and data collection.
 

2. Both systems are trying to make better use of what is already being collected  

North East & North Cumbria are creating a framework that acts as a "translation layer", rather than trying to find a single reporting system. This recognises qualitative evidence alongside quantitative measures and acknowledges that wider outcomes, such as reduced demand on health and care services, require analysis by commissioners and system partners rather than expecting individual VCSE organisations to demonstrate them alone. 
 

West Yorkshire's approach similarly focuses on consistency, shared tools and practical evaluation methods that can be used across different organisations without creating unnecessary complexity. Challenges around capacity, information governance, training, digital infrastructure and the realities of working across large partnerships are being taken into consideration. 
 

What does this tell us?  

Listening to both presentations, we were struck by how much the conversation has evolved since we first started working in this field. We’ve moved on from “How can the VCSE prove its impact?” Professionals from both VCSE and public sector now recognise that developing meaningful metrics is a shared endeavour. It requires VCSE organisations, commissioners and policymakers to agree what matters, what evidence is useful and how that evidence will inform commissioning decisions. 
 

Just as importantly – and we’ve said this so many times  - the process of doing the hard work together builds the organisational relationships and trust that underpin effective cross-sector partnerships. 
 

And what next?  

One thing is clear to us. These case studies can provide invaluable learning and expertise for health and care systems looking to tackle this challenge.  
 

Although great progress has been made, this is still very much developing in the North East & North Cumbria and West Yorkshire systems. Shared Purpose will continue to bring people together to share good practice and develop joint solutions to shared challenges. 
 

What needs to happen now is  - commissioners, policymakers and system leaders must be supported to create the conditions for developing simple, proportionate measurement frameworks. This will meet some of the “key enablers” in the NHS Strategic Commissioning Framework and lead to more holistic health and care pathways, and the full contribution that VCSE organisations make as partners in improving people's health and wellbeing being realised. 

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You can download the presentation slides from the session here.