Dudley is one of fourteen vanguard sites nationally developing the Multispecialty Community Provider (MCP) care model. The MCP involves the implementation of new organisational relationships that are intended to result in new system dynamics, incentivising the actions that can improve population health over the long term. The patient is at the centre of the MCP model of care. The MCP will bring together the services of GP practices, nurses, community health and mental health services, community-based services such as physiotherapy, relevant hospital specialists and others to provide joined up care in the community, improving outcomes and reducing demand.

All this takes place in an uncertain context: the challenges facing NHS systems are headline news; NHS structures are frequently the subject of organisational change and new policy directives; funding allocations are determined on a relatively short term basis; and the impacts of the wider environment on the NHS and local health and care systems cannot be accurately predicted (e.g. how patterns of trade, competition and migration may change; what technological advances will be made and how the public will respond to them; how the supply and culture of the workforce will evolve).

The Strategy Unit has been a strategic partner providing specialist support to the development and evaluation of the MCP, and the MCP Programme Board asked us to assist local stakeholders in exploring a range of plausible futures that could evolve over the intended fifteen year duration of the MCP contract. The aim of this work was not to predict the future but, through exploring a diverse set of plausible futures, to generate practical responses that would increase the effectiveness, resilience and agility of local plans, as well as providing additional assurance to regulators.

Dudley MCP Scenarios

 

Scenario work is best seen as an ongoing process: it builds social capital, provokes new insights and enables partners to explore challenging issues in a collaborative rather than competitive manner. This report is therefore only a staging post which:

  • Describes the MCP strategy;
  • Explores key features in the wider contextual environment;
  • Presents three plausible future scenarios; and
  • Records the shared learning that local stakeholders have already begun to generate following a workshop with a broad range of senior local leaders

Thank you so much to the team for this highly developed piece of innovative work.

The scenario my group worked on was very different to how I anticipate the future, so the challenge was very helpful.

The fact that there were very different perspectives in the group really helped challenge my thinking.

Well written narratives with surprising but plausible futures.

A fantastic piece of work that has taken us truly to a different place!