The Advancing Quality Alliance (AQuA) is an NHS membership organisation based in the North West of England. AQuA has extensive experience of supporting and enabling change on a system wide basis over the past six years. In addition, AQuA has supported members to put patients and their families at the heart of the services they commission and provide, by ensuring their views are heard and they are involved in the review, design and improvement of services. In 2016, supported by a grant from the Health Foundation, AQuA undertook a 90-day rapid review into Whole System Flow across care systems. This created a huge amount of energy and interest from our members and so a 12 month discovery programme was developed. As part of this work, we piloted a programme with two localities to test the hypothesis ‘co-designing and commissioning services which are person centred will improve whole system flow, quality and cost’. We developed improvement plan outlines with each locality that were both cognisant of local context and also challenged the teams to consider a strategic ambition for testing coproduction and person centred approaches and improving whole system flow . The presentation will describe the programme of work and the key learning emerging from the pilot sites. We will describe how enabling a person centred approach to service design can deliver improved safety; productivity and experience of care. We will also share the operational, engagement and leadership challenges faced and describe the potential for increased coproduction within health and care services. The presentation will suggest how this approach can be replicated by commissioners, particularly where health and social care systems and their communities are coming together to jointly commission services for a defined population. Targeted population and stakeholders: The presentation will be of interest to NHS and Social Care Leaders and clinicians working in Primary Care, Commissioning, Acute hospitals, Mental Health, Community and Specialist services, patient leaders and involvement groups.
