Commissioning excellence

It is led by Sue Thomas, who has a clinical background in nursing and has held leading national roles since 1991, including 18 years as national policy and practice advisor for long-term conditions at the Royal College of Nursing.

Sue has been an expert advisor to numerous Department of Health work streams and NICE, as well as having a place on the Board of the Royal College of Physicians’ former National Council for Chronic Conditions.

Our experienced team offers flexible support to create efficiencies and ensure high-quality services for patients and their families. These bespoke services will be tailored closely to your objectives, fulfilling your precise commissioning support needs.

We have expertise covering numerous areas within the commissioning process. This includes audit, data analysis, service mapping and modelling, plus idea-sharing events – all delivered with the benefit of our extensive experience and flexibility, creativity and insight.

Our vision is to be the recognised expert and partner of choice for commissioning support, particularly in the field of neurology. We ensure patients have access to the right services, in the right place, at the right time.

Because we know that ready-made solutions are not an option, we provide tailor-made approaches. Our work is shaped by our core principles:

• We believe in partnerships: team solutions are the best solutions
• We ensure our work is aligned to your strategic plans and objectives
• We are professional, thorough and act with integrity
• We take your problems to heart – we make them our challenges

Needs assessment

You can work with us to develop the definitive big picture of what’s working and what’s not in your geographical area. We’ll help you develop your Joint Strategic Needs Assessment in neurology, forecasting the future healthcare and wellbeing requirements of your population. Together, we will identify gaps in service provision and focus your strategic direction to meet those needs.

Business intelligence

Commissioning Excellence’s highly experienced staff can give you a reliable evidence baseline to inform key decisions affecting the health and wellbeing of the population. Our factual analysis incorporates a wide range of data to meet your needs, including public health and social care data, plus HES. Applying our expertise to this information allows us to produce expert local intelligence, risk stratification and predictive modelling, to improve and inform any number of projects.

Service redesign

We have unparalleled experience in providing commissioning support to help redesign services for people with long-term and neurological conditions. Using our unique resources, we will help you undertake audits and reviews to carry out service redesign, and can work with you to develop clinical specifications, pathways and local services that are efficient, productive and patient-friendly.

Commissioning Excellence’s data can support service redesign through fact-based scenario-modelling, mapping and analysis. Previous projects have included development of transferable integrated care models, full analysis of patient flows and service configurations, as well as priority recommendations. Our results are tailored and flexible, so you can take full advantage of your own unique redesign opportunities.

Communication

We are specialists in gathering first-hand input from all commissioning stakeholders, including patients, the voluntary sector, social care, physicians, payers and providers. This input is accessed through our extensive network of connections, and via a range of interactive mediums, such as interviews, focus groups, surveys, social media and other electronic campaigns. The insight generated from these interactions dovetails with our considerable experience to form an integral part of our service reviews.

Additionally, we also facilitate stakeholder communication through our local Commissioning Networks (Neurology, Mental Health and Rheumatology), Educational Workshops and National Leadership forums. Our events provide stakeholders with a platform to share expert knowledge and analyse relevant data. This lets current health needs be understood, prior to the development of new services. By attending our events, stakeholders establish the role they can play in the commissioning process, to achieve better efficiencies and outcomes.