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Case study NHS Leeds: Change management

In 2007 five primary care trusts (PCTs) merged to become one, NHS Leeds. This merger occurred alongside an initiative by the Department of Health to dramatically transform the way health and care services are commissioned in England, known as World Class Commissioning. The merger of five PCTs came with the challenge of merging groups of employees that had their own ways of working and commissioning - we needed new processes that everyone collectively recognised, while increasing the capability within the organisation.

We commissioned Maven Training to deliver project and programme management training for over 200 members of staff. Training sessions gave employees the skills to manage any project and, in particular, how to manage multiple stakeholders when commissioning healthcare services. 

The results of training have been: an increase in efficiency; greater control of commissioning; better-informed stakeholders; and cost savings through streamlining processes. We are now looking at how lessons learned from effective project management can be extended and applied to other partnerships, such as working with the local authority and other PCTs in the region to improve efficiencies.

Andrew Dangerfield is world-class commissioning programme manager at NHS Leeds