PRACTICE AREA - TRANSFORMATION

Programme leadership at scale - when the change has to land

Transformation is what we do when the size of the problem is too big for incremental change. Service reconfigurations, target operating models, new hospital builds, group models, mergers, large efficiency programmes. Work that touches strategy, structure, people, process, finance and estate - and that has to actually land, not just be announced.

Talk to a programme director How we work

Six connected services covering the discipline of major programme leadership - as PMO, programme director, or independent assurance.

Our services

Six services across the transformation discipline

Service

Programme leadership, PMO & assurance

The moment a transformation programme moves from strategy into delivery is where most of them start to slip. Not because the strategy was wrong, but because the delivery capability wasn't there. We provide the programme leadership, PMO capability and independent assurance that keeps major programmes on track.

What's covered

Embedded programme directors - senior programme directors placed into your programme for the duration, accountable for delivery.…
PMO design and leadership - designing, standing up and running the programme management office for a major transformation.
Programme oversight and coordination - coordinating the multiple partners a large programme typically involves - clinical, digital…
Independent programme assurance - board-commissioned assurance reviews for programmes at business case, mobilisation, mid-delivery…

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Service

Service reconfiguration

Reconfiguring a clinical service is one of the hardest things any health system does. It touches clinical pathways, workforce, estate, finance, statutory consultation and often the politics of place. We lead reconfiguration programmes end to end - as PMO, programme director and honest broker across the many partners the work involves.

What's covered

Strategic case development - the clinical, operational, workforce and financial case for a reconfiguration, built for board and sy…
Options appraisal - robust, comparable evaluation of reconfiguration options with clinical, workforce, activity, estates and finan…
Pre-consultation work - the assurance and preparation needed to make a reconfiguration ready for public consultation.
Statutory consultation coordination - delivered in partnership with our engagement partner Olovus, with Health Dynamics leading th…

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Service

Target operating models

Target operating models are the vehicle for most significant organisational and functional change in the NHS - from a People function stand-up in a new ICB, to a clinical service model change in a large trust, to an integrated function across a group of organisations. We design them and deliver them end to end.

What's covered

Corporate operating models - TOM design and delivery for corporate functions: People, Strategy, Finance, Digital, Estates.
Clinical operating models - TOM design and delivery for clinical services or service groups.
Integrated / shared services operating models - operating models designed to work across organisational boundaries in an ICS, grou…
Transition planning - moving from current operating model to future operating model with minimal disruption and clear staff journe…

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Service

New builds & major capital programmes

New hospitals, community facility programmes, major refurbishment and estate rationalisation are among the most complex, most political and most workforce-sensitive programmes in the NHS. We provide the non-technical programme leadership that makes them deliver - sitting alongside your construction, digital and design partners as PMO, oversight and assurance.

What's covered

Non-technical programme leadership - the programme direction, PMO capability and cross-workstream coordination that construction p…
Clinical, workforce and OD workstreams - the strands of a new-build programme that decide whether the clinical service actually wo…
Transition planning - the choreography of moving services, teams and patients into new facilities, minimising disruption.
Business case support - the workforce, clinical and operational content that makes an outline or full business case credible.…

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Service

Group models, mergers & partnerships

NHS organisations are increasingly delivering care in groups, formal partnerships, provider collaboratives and mergers. Getting the shape of that integration right - and delivering it - is one of the most consequential decisions any board makes. We lead the programmes that make integration land.

What's covered

Group model design - the strategic, structural, governance and operational design of a group of NHS organisations.
Merger / acquisition programmes - leading the full lifecycle of a formal merger or acquisition, from strategic case through to Day…
Provider collaboratives and formal partnerships - the operating models, governance and delivery routes for less-than-merger integr…
Integration operating models - how the day-to-day work of two, three or more organisations actually integrates once the deal is do…

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Service

Efficiency & productivity programmes

Most NHS efficiency programmes deliver less than they promise and unravel in year two. We design and lead efficiency programmes that hit their year-one targets and - crucially - sustain the benefits into year two and beyond. Because we treat efficiency as a workforce, OD and operational problem, not a spreadsheet exercise.

What's covered

Efficiency programme design - the strategy and structure of a multi-workstream efficiency programme, calibrated to the specific op…
Workstream leadership - leading specific workstreams within a broader programme - corporate services, clinical productivity, agenc…
Clinical productivity work - clinician-led productivity improvement in specific services or specialties.
Corporate services efficiency - from single-organisation review through to integrated shared services.

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How we lead transformation

We are programme directors before we are consultants. The people we put into transformation programmes have led similar programmes themselves - with real budgets, real boards and real consequences. They know what a delivery plan should look like, and they know what one looks like when it is in trouble.

We work in partnership. On major programmes we typically sit as the PMO, oversight and assurance function - bringing our own consultants for the workforce, OD and change dimensions, and working alongside your clinical, operational, digital, estates and finance leads (and their specialist partners).

We stay accountable. Whichever partners are in the programme, Health Dynamics carries the client relationship and the delivery accountability.

Delivered in partnership

Where transformation programmes need serious workforce modelling, we deliver alongside OrgVue. Where they need large-volume patient, public or staff engagement - public consultation on a reconfiguration, for example - we deliver alongside Olovus. Transparent, named, and with a single accountable Health Dynamics client relationship.

Where transformation meets the other practices

Every major programme has a workforce and OD dimension - usually the one that decides whether the change lands. We draw on our workforce practice throughout, as a matter of course. Where a programme is driven by population need or has a serious inequalities strand, our population health practice sits alongside. Same team, same context, no handoffs.

Case studies

Recent work in this practice

NHS ACUTE FOUNDATION TRUST

Workforce productivity in financial recovery

Board-level options framework for a three-year workforce transformation programme in a trust in financial recovery.

Read the case study

Got a transformation that has to land?

Transformation that has to actually deliver - not just be announced - is what we exist for. The first conversation is about your programme, not our methodology.

Talk to a programme director