Three people sat around a desk discussing paperwork in front of them

Commissioning Support and Policy Development

A bespoke service to support all elements of the commissioning cycle

SPH has significant experience and understanding of NHS and local authority commissioning mechanisms and issues and a proven track record of supporting commissioners with decision making and policy development.

What we do

  • We develop robust decision making frameworks, making sure the available evidence is taken into account to support rational and defendable decisions
  • We help our clients develop evidence-based policies or service specifications, answer questions around the cost effectiveness of interventions, assess the appropriateness and acceptability of interventions and consider the impact of proposals locally
  • We consult with those delivering and using services about the strengths and weaknesses of existing services
  • We help our customers connect information and evidence to achieve positive outcomes
  • We support commissioners to engage with, influence and contribute to NICE guidance

Why choose SPH?

SPH has extensive experience of supporting commissioners gained over 15 years working to set priorities and redesign services, enabling them to deliver best value, best health outcomes for their populations.

In addition to the range of public health commissioning support and policy development skills and expertise available from the SPH team, we also work with colleagues in the service transformation and business intelligence teams within Arden & GEM CSU.  This enables us to offer a comprehensive commissioning support service utilising evidence, data analysis, best practice and service redesign to achieve transformational changes across health economies.

Please get in touch via our contact page.

Case Studies

A clinical review of drugs and treatments for the States of Guernsey

Solutions for Public Health was commissioned by the States of Guernsey to undertake an independent review to identify the extent to which new treatments recommended by the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE) were funded for Guernsey patients, and how the gap might be addressed to reduce health inequalities and improve health outcomes. Click the link to read the full case study. Case Study - SPH - Clinical Review for Guernsey

Improving allocative value decision-making in the stroke pathway (STAR tool)

The Mid and South Essex stroke stewardship group wanted to better understand which of the interventions they delivered were high value and which were low value to inform decision-making on use of resources and investment. Arden & GEM’s Healthcare Solutions team provided training and support to enable the group to use the Socio-Technical Allocation of Resources (STAR) process in value based decision-making. As a result, the MSE stroke stewardship group has the insight needed to improve the allocation of their existing resources and improve outcomes for their patients. SPH were part of the project team, conducting a librarian review of economic evidence relating to cost-effectiveness of the stroke interventions to feed into the first workshop. This comprised a review of existing economic cost-effectiveness assessments (ideally by NICE as these are recognised as the guiding authority within the NHS). Where an economic assessment had not been undertaken then this was noted for further consideration. More detail here

Health Needs Assessment for Children & Young People

SPH carried out a Health Needs Assessment for a local authority that was recommissioning its Healthy Child Programme (HCP). The purpose was to review whether existing provision and service configuration of the HCP was meeting the needs of children and young people in the county, and to identify gaps and potential options for improvement. This is a preventative programme which includes Health Visiting and School Nursing Services, Family Nurse Partnership (FNP) Programme and healthy start vouchers and vitamins, linking with childhood immunisation services, community paediatrics, speech and language, services for children with a learning disability and complex needs and child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS), among others. The HNA was carried out jointly by SPH and the local authority, with the epidemiological needs assessment and service description provided by the local authority. The report was compiled using a range of publicly available and locally collected epidemiological and service use data. In addition, SPH carried out a consultation of key corporate stakeholders as well as children and young people, their parents and carers. This included semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders in a range of organisations, a survey of a wider range of staff who work with children and young people and a survey of children and young people, their parents and cares which was distributed through the services.

Supporting Priorities Committees

Our work with Priorities Committees enables NHS commissioners to balance complex choices, backed up with independent evidence reviews and ethical frameworks. We provide an end-to-end service which includes the development of an ethical framework to inform the decision-making process, topic selection, evidence reviews, consultation with clinical specialists, operational support to priorities committees and drafting of clinical commissioning recommendations. We have also worked with commissioners around the country in developing and advising on setting up their own decision-making processes. We have experience of supporting commissioners in appeals against NICE guidance and in judicial reviews.
More case studies >
Testimonials