The Black Country Provider Collaborative

The Black Country Provider Collaborative (BCPC) was initially formed in late 2020 to promote better partnership working between the four Acute Providers.

It has taken various forms such as:

  • Acute Care Collaborative (ACC) – September 2020
  • Acute Provider Collaborative (APC) – August 2021
  • Black Country Provider Collaborative (BCPC) – since April 2022

Terms of Reference have been developed for these new arrangements and are reviewed and refined frequently as our system matures, with the responsibilities and accountabilities for these outlined below.

Collaborative Board

  • Strategy and direction setting (for example, strengthening collaboration)
  • Policy review (for example, PC Toolkit)
  • Governance and assurance (for example, delivery deep dives)
  • Review and approval of Business cases (for example, surgical robotics)
  • Review and approval of service and business developments (for example, service change activities, case for change)

Collaborative Executive

  • Review and recommendation of Strategic developments (for example, tele-dermatology)
  • Coordinating and supporting collaborative planning activities (for example, service change activities)
  • Governance and assurance activities (for example, deep dives)
  • Performance monitoring and management (for example, clinical improvement priorities)
  • Resource management (for example, project management office deployment)
  • Workforce, Human Resources, and Organisational Development (for example, ESR, Mutual Aid)
  • Digital, IT and Information (for example, Cancer Patient Tracking List)
  • Communications and engagement (for example, Newsletters)
  • Risk Management (for example, Risk Register)

Clinical Leads Group

  • Initial review of strategic developments
  • Clinical service planning (for example, High Volume Low Complexity trajectories)
  • Performance monitoring (for example, delivery of ‘Getting it right first time’)
  • Resource management (for example, productivity and efficiency impact of developments)
  • Communications and engagement (for example, promotional material for new service pathways)

The BCPC has selected a formal Chair (Sir David Nicholson) and has established:

  • A repositioned Collaborative Board (currently a ‘Committee in Common’)
  • Collaborative Executive – Chaired by the Provider Collaborative Senior Responsible Officer (Diane Wake)
  • Clinical Leads Group – Chaired by the Provider Collaborative Chief Medical Officer (Dr Jonathan Odum)

You can also see an overview of our Current Governance Arrangements.

More recently, the BCPC has developed and established a working vision statement together with goals for our Clinical Improvement Programme, to which we have aligned an ambitious set of priorities for progression and improvements across the areas of access, quality, system resilience and transformation.

This is illustrated in our Golden Thread Model.

A strong focus for the BCPC is centred on inclusion and partnership working, where we seek to build trust and relationships, and make strides to change the long-embedded culture of competition between organisations.

We will continue to work closely with the Integrated Care Board (ICB) to discuss further delegations and the next steps.