The NHS Alliance and Local Trust have published ‘Partnerships in practice’, drawing on an 18-month action research programme supported by the Innovation Unit. Six Big Local legacy areas received funding to test community-led approaches to health and develop relationships with statutory services.
The report examines how community organisations can help shape priorities and decisions, alongside their work supporting residents. It describes three forms of collaboration: helping statutory services reach communities, developing a shared approach, and statutory bodies supporting priorities that communities have set themselves.
Its recommendations concern lasting organisational commitment, combining community knowledge with statutory data, agreeing priorities together, funding core work over several years, and using proportionate reporting to learn and improve.
One practical warning concerns referrals. Sending more people to a community organisation can increase its workload without providing the resources to respond. Inviting it into meetings can have the same effect when participation is unpaid and decisions remain elsewhere.
For commissioners, the report offers a way to examine the arrangements behind a partnership: what the organisation can influence, what its funding sustains, and how both parties use what they learn. The findings are learning from six places, rather than a claim that one model will work everywhere.