NHS seeks agency help for 'change day' ahead of controversial reform

PRWeek understands the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement is in talks with a small number of agencies around promoting the day, which is planned for the spring.

The project brief comes as the healthcare system faces controversial root-and-branch reform in an effort to improve efficiency and cut costs.

It is believed the event would involve frontline staff in NHS services across England doing something differently for a day, although full details have yet to be announced.

Any agency appointed would be charged with promoting it to those within the NHS, as well as stakeholders and the public.

A well-placed agency source said: ‘It’s about getting across the message that the NHS is doing things it needs to do to modernise, while getting people to rally around and learn from one another. I believe the Department of Health wants to create critical mass around the modernisation.

‘It should not be seen as top-down change, but change by the frontline workers within the NHS, and this will be a way of bringing it to life.’

Under coalition plans, much of the architecture of the current system would be swept away, with GPs given new powers to commission services.

The Government hopes that the changes will save £20bn by 2015, with the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement earmarked for closure next March. A spokesman for the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement declined to comment.

This article was first published on prweek.com