Value in Healthcare Awards: Value and Improvement in Commissioning Support Services

365 Response: 999 Ambulance Demand Management Innovation

The judges said: “Our winning entry has clear patient benefits and tackles some challenging and complex patient areas. It is culturally challenging and the whole system changes made are sustainable.”

365 Response is a service created specifically for commissioners, with the aim of helping them to improve ambulance commissioning. Having identified that the usual practice of commissioning on large contracts was not efficient, 365 Response created a clinically led service which aimed to change the way in which CCGs and trusts procure ambulance services.  

The model brings together two streams of procurement: 999 ambulance emergency demand and urgent healthcare professional (HCP) referral. These streams are traditionally dealt with separately, doubling the amount of work needed, both for the procurement and the subsequent contract management needed.

365’s procurement model is the first national quality standard and service specification across the whole care system that is part of a clinical framework agreement.

One of 365’s partners – NHS Hambleton, Richmond and Witby CCG – has seen significant improvements in A&E services after using the procurement model, with over 95 per cent of patients responded to within two hours and a reduction in waiting times for an HCP.  

• See all the winners of the Value in Healthcare Awards 2015
• See the full list of award judges

Finalists

• Kent County Council, Kent and Medway Health Informatics Service and NHS Improving Quality: Kent LTC Year of Care Programme
• Central Midlands and Lancashire CSU: redesign of intermediate care services in Birmingham
• Erewash CCG Voluntary Organisations: The Powerful Link
• NHS Arden and Greater East Midlands CSU and Midland Heart: Homeless Hospital Discharge Programme – Improving service delivery and reducing A&E readmission among homeless people
• NHS Midlands and Lancashire CSU: Using insight across health systems to improve patient care
• NHS South, Central and West CSU: end of life anticipatory prescribing
• NHS South, Central and West CSU: Modelling tool to improve commissioning of Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services
• North of England CSU: Transforming NHS Continuing Healthcare: system wide standard operating procedures
• The Good Governance Institute – Good governance outcomes for CCGs