Case Studies

Setting up of new organisations

Change Management, Interim Management

Challenge: We have supported the establishment of a number of organisations.  The support needs tend to be very varied.  It may be for input to a discussion on intellectual property one day, facilitating a design workshop, another; to designing a new service on yet another.

Solution: As part of these assignments we have designed governance frameworks, produced operational policies and procedures; including those for procurement and risk management.  The policy documents were designed very much as a ‘living’, practical guide with signposts to further support and guidance.  Another important aspect of this work has been the design, implementation and management of new services.

Outcome: It helps in having broad experience, to know the geography in which you are working and have colleagues on which to call for specialist advice.

Pricing Strategy

Commissioning, Contracting & Procurement, Financial Improvement, Strategy, Planning & Modelling

Challenge: Our client was facing significant pressure from its major commissioner to reduce its local prices and sought our help in defending its income levels.

Solution: We carried out a thorough review of the hospital’s activity, costing and billing data, using it to identify potential opportunities and then to create a flexible forecasting model to demonstrate their impact. Following deep engagement with clinical teams on specific initiatives and a series of review sessions with the senior finance team and operational managers, we developed a full pricing strategy to inform the trust’s negotiations with its commissioners.

Outcome: The settlement reached between our client and its commissioners was at the lowest end of the range of possible outcomes. In addition, the finance team had an improved understanding of the drivers of income for the hospital and were better placed to give good business support to their divisional leadership teams.

Strategic management of contracts

Commissioning, Contracting & Procurement

Challenge: Park Street Consulting provided support to NHS and local authority organisations as part of reconfiguration of healthcare.

Solution: This assignment involved the development of a contract database containing essential details on each contract (healthcare, estates and corporate) and key attributes and development of a procurement plan scheduling all contract renewals and possible procurements.

Outcome: The process of gathering the data revealed many contracts that had been “forgotten”.   Our work led to an awareness of the volume of contracts, contract termination and renewal planning and allowed an improvement in negotiation positions and governance.  It also brought a greater awareness across the organisations of the requirements to procure and the benefits of doing so.

Transition support

Change Management

Challenge: A regional communications & engagement team asked Park Street Consulting to support them in their endeavour to transition from independent, organisation-based functions to an integrated network.

The focus was to provide a framework through which staff would be involved in development of new services and structures.  This included development of a memorandum of understanding between parties.

Solution: Using a team approach we resourced this project jointly with the client.  Working within a capped budget enabled us to front-load in order to gain traction within a few weeks.  By preparing draft project outlines, tasks and deliverable benefits, we were able to fast-track the initiation of the eight projects.  Park Street Consulting provided support to project leads; formulating draft project plans and identifying expected outputs.  Through the regular, virtual meetings we provided a strong steer on the importance of networked solutions, stressing their importance in a new model of service delivery.  We created a programme dashboard, updated weekly, to support the reporting on project progress for each workstream, and actively managed the actions list from weekly steering group meetings.

Outcome: Within the transition framework, project leads were able to focus on the future shape of service delivery and to gain valuable experience of networked working.

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