Lessons from the West Yorkshire hospice collaborative
I am sat outside Wakefield Hospice, and the feeling is one of peace. That is what I notice across all of the hospices that I have visited in the 10-strong collaborative I have had the privilege of supporting for the past four years. These are not places of sadness, but of warmth, welcome and peace. And they are also places where caring, brave, open and honest conversations are the norm.
This skill that the 10 hospice Chief Executives have of being both empathetic and fearless has doubtless contributed to the growth of this collaborative. Keen to explore more, I sat down with the outgoing and incoming Chair of the collaborative, Gareth Pierce and Sarah Bottomley, to dig deeper into the keys to successful collaboration.
Ingredients of a successful partnership
I started by asking Gareth about the purpose of the West Yorkshire Hospice Collaborative – in our experience, collaborations and partnerships come in one of three types. Tactical partnerships are about working together to secure short term gains or economies of scale. Strategic partnerships enable you to lever the resources that no one partner would be able to access alone. And transformative partnerships are aimed at creating change in the system around you. It seems to me that one of the ingredients of success of the collaborative is that it has been a combination of all three - tactical, strategic and transformative. Would you agree:
“Yes I think that’s right - the West Yorkshire hospice collaborative has been a good mix of all three. On tactics, all 10 hospices across West Yorkshire – including 2 children’s hospices and 3 hospices that were part of a national group - came together in crisis mode as a response to the pandemic and more recently we have shared experience of CQC inspections and fire evacuations – all of which is the practical glue that keeps us together.”
“In terms of strategic partnership, we quickly recognised that a single voice helps us negotiate a better financial settlement for all from our ICB partners. And more recently we have worked in closer partnership with ICB and other colleagues across West Yorkshire to identify gaps in palliative and end of life care provision – and work together to identify how those could be closed.”
So what has been key to that success? Sarah Bottomley has been part of the collaborative for a number of years and is just starting her second stint as Chair:
“Having open, honest conversations has been critical. It has been important for us to recognise the fact that hospices are different is a strength not a weakness. And we have all had to take a bit of a leap of faith that we can deliver more by working together. This has proven to be the case, but there are definitely moments when doubts creep in and feeling comfortable to share those has been key.”
“There have also been some simple things that have made a big difference. It would be easy to assume we know each other but our regular deep dives into each hospice means we have been able to really understand the challenges and opportunities our colleagues are facing.”
“I also hope we create a warm and engaging environment for new joins – there has been a lot of churn among our membership, but it has been surprisingly robust to those changes.”
“Ultimately,” Gareth adds “what keeps us going is a recognition that the people of West Yorkshire deserve the very best palliative and end of life care. We have lots to be proud of in that respect, but there is so much more to be done to ensure that people and their families have access to the quality care and support they need.”
Looking ahead for the collaborative
So what’s next for the work? The collaborative recently developed its first strategy – focussed on resilience, equity, partnerships and supporting the collaborative itself. “While it feels challenging to focus on the long term when the hospice sector is under such pressure, we know we cannot keep doing the same things and expect a different result.” reflects Sarah “So we are set to use our joint influencing power across the region and nationally to make sure that hospice provision is recognised and valued as a critical piece of palliative and end of life care.”
Here are Sarah’s and Gareth’s top tips for building a collaboration:
Be patient! Collaborations takes time to build and while we are now at a stage where we can see the benefits of working together, you do need to take a leap of faith.
Take time out to get to know each other as people. In person meetings and deep dives have been a critical part of building trust and empathy across the group. We are not all the same, and have different challenges and motivations. That is a good thing but you need to give yourself time to understand that.
Remember why you are doing the work. Many of us have long careers in palliative and end of life care and ultimately we are motivated because we know what a difference that care can make.
Build common data and analysis. While this might not sound like the most exciting bit of a collaboration, it would not have been possible to talk about funding with the ICB if we hadn’t shared data openly between us and built a common analysis of where funding was missing.
Partner with others on the same journey. We are not the only health and care collaborative in West Yorkshire and we are learning from them as we go. We are also beginning to make connections with other hospice collaboratives here and internationally. Hearing what other people have done is always inspiring and they can also point out the things that don’t work.
If you’d like to hear more about this work, get in touch with our team here.
Written by Katherine Rake