Implementation Planning: A Strategy of NHS - Analysis and Planning

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the implementation planning strategy for the National Health Service (NHS), focusing on improving cancer care. It begins with an executive summary highlighting the importance of clearly defined roles and responsibilities for all stakeholders involved in NHS initiatives. The report then delves into various aspects of implementation planning, including governance structures, analytical survey analysis, and value chain analysis to identify key activities. The report also examines stakeholder engagement strategies, risk management approaches, and monitoring and evaluation processes. Furthermore, it outlines resource management considerations and management strategies crucial for successful implementation. The report emphasizes the importance of early diagnosis, tackling variations in care, and workforce management within the NHS framework, and stresses the need for structured thinking and communication in planning, governance, risk management, stakeholder engagement, monitoring, and resource management, all of which are critical for the successful execution of NHS initiatives. The report includes a survey analysis and value chain analysis to support the recommendations.

Implementation Planning: A Strategy of NHS
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Executive Summary
It is important for NHS to have a clearly defined, agreed and documented roles and
responsibilities for each individual or group, who are involved in the initiative. Defining and
responsibilities of each individual or group would enable NHS in building consensus or
understanding the opportunities and challenges regarding the initiative. NHS is resorted to its
priority, which is to improve the care, support and treatment and support for those, who are
diagnosed with cancer. A wide range of specific steps, including design for increasing
prevention, speeding up diagnosis, improving the patients’ experience and providing aid to
people, who are living with and beyond the disease have been published by the National
Cancer Transformation Board. NHS needs to ensure active involvement of its stakeholders
throughout its policy life cycle, which includes developing, implementing, delivering the
policy, along with reviewing each stage of the policies. It is crucial for NHS to take the
feedbacks of its stakeholders into consideration and incorporate them for managing the
expectations of the stakeholders before engagement, during the time of the engagement and
after the engagement.
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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................4
Implementation Planning...........................................................................................................4
Governance................................................................................................................................6
Analytical Survey Analysis........................................................................................................6
Value Chain Analysis.................................................................................................................8
Engaging stakeholders.............................................................................................................11
Managing risk...........................................................................................................................12
Monitoring, reviewing and evaluation.....................................................................................14
Resource Management.............................................................................................................17
Management Strategy...............................................................................................................18
Conclusion................................................................................................................................19
Reference List..........................................................................................................................20
Appendix..................................................................................................................................23
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Introduction
Implementation planning can be defined as the process, through which, organizations plan
their strategic goals and objectives to tactical goals and objectives. Implementation planning
enables an organization in describing milestones, conditions for success and explaining how
or what portion of a strategic plan is needed for an operation within a given operational
period (covwarkpt.nhs.uk, 2016). Besides, implementation planning is crucial for all
organizations, irrespective of their types in establishing their activities and budgets for each
part for the next one to three years. It also leads an organization link the strategic plan with its
activities; it would deliver along with its resources needed by it for the delivery. Hence, it can
be said that implementation planning is fundamental for organizations in enabling them
experience successful outcomes in accordance with their decisions. In this assignment, the
implementation planning of NHS would be provided along with the Planning, Governance,
Managing risk, Engaging stakeholders, Monitoring, review and evaluation and Management
Strategy.
Implementation Planning
The National Health Survey (NHS) seems to deliver thousands of initiatives every year
successfully. Implementation risk is included in its various policies, projects and programs
and that is why, appropriate management discipline, including engagement with central
agencies is required for maximizing the prospects of successfully delivery. NHS is resorted to
its priority, which is to improve the care, support, treatment, and support for those, who are
diagnosed with cancer (nhsinvolvement.co.uk, 2017). A wide range of specific steps,
including design for increasing prevention, speeding up diagnosis, improving the patients’
experience and providing aid to people, who are living with and beyond the disease have
been published by the National Cancer Transformation Board. NHS has outlined its
significant progress in a Progress Report (2016-2017) for delivering excellent cancer services
in England, including:
 Priority investment for faster and earlier diagnosis
 Installation of 12 upgrades for radiotherapy equipment and 36 Linear Accelerators at
more than 23 hospitals (emeraldinsight.com, 2017)
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 Implementing a Recovery Package and developing a quality life metric for supporting
survivors.
In the current scenario, survival rates for cancer have become higher in England. However,
NHS has resorted to implement steps in order to ensure early diagnosis of cancer patients,
along with tackling variation in access to care and workforce (nhsinvolvement.co.uk, 2017).
The implantation plan seems to focuses on six priority areas:
1. Advanced diagnosis
2. Deterrence and health of the public
3. Experience of the patients
4. Looking after patients, who are living with and beyond cancer
5. Investing for a high quality, modern service
6. Accountability, Commissioning and Provision.
Effective implementation planning needs an approach, which is most structured in terms of
thinking and communicating in various areas:
1. Planning
2. Governance
3. Managing risk
4. Engaging stakeholders
5. Monitoring, review and evaluation
6. Resource Management
7. Management Strategy
Importance of implementation planning is as follows:
 Addressing a strategic priority regarding the government
 It includes complex or major changes (nhsinvolvement.co.uk, 2017)
 It includes important cross jurisdictional issues and cross agency
 It is sensitive in certain areas, including, stakeholders receiving media attention
 Needs vital implementation
 Includes complex or new service delivery arrangements or technology
 It has been formed over a shorter span of time.
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Governance
It is critical for NHS to have effective governance arrangements. It should consider effective
governance arrangements primarily in order to plan for a new initiative.
NHS should design governance arrangements in parallel with other early planning activities,
including, stakeholder analysis, initial risk assessment and key task timelines
(emeraldinsight.com, 2016). It is crucial for NHS to develop governance arrangements
collaboratively along with agreement with all the key stakeholders in order to ensure
governance structure’s suitability in accordance with the demands of the initiatives.
Best practice principles and processes for helping NHS foundation trust boards of directors
are set by the code of governance, including,
 Enabling the organization in performing better (health.org.uk, 2017)
 Maintaining advance quality regarding corporate governance
 Providing the patients with effective, secured services
Analytical Survey Analysis
(Please find the analytical survey in Appendix)
From the analytical survey, it has been identified that most of the respondents are agreed that
most of the respondents are agreed regarding the asked questions through survey. On the
other hand, it has been identified that most of the respondents believe that analytics can be
applied as a principle business issue that every organization faces as a whole. In addition, it
has also been identified that functional areas can be improved with the help of better
investment planning in case of analytics-related HR resources. It can also be identified that
with the help of better planning and strategy, it becomes easy to predict the importance of
analytical skills, which can be proved as effective for an organization.
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Figure 1: Culture
(Source: Created by the learner)
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Figure 2: Data Management
(Source: Created by the learner)
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0%
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Figure 3: Skills
(Source: Created by the learner)
Value Chain Analysis
Figure 4: Value Chain Analysis
(Source: business-to-you.com, 2019)
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From the above figure, it has been identified that the term “Value Chain Analysis” enables an
organization to identify all the necessary activities (internal and external) in an effective
manner. It is also important to make proper planning, as it will lead the company towards
success. There are five primary activities performing in the value chain of an organization,
which are inbound logistics, operations, outbound logistics, marketing & sales and service
and these all denoting the margin of a business. All of these value chain elements can be
categorized based on organizational infrastructure, HR management, technology development
and procurement, which can be described as follows-
Inbound logistics: Inbound logistics enable an organization to purchase raw materials from
the external sources in where receiving, disseminating and storing of the products.
Operations: marketing related operations are aimed to provide proper input for the product
development and it will help the company to transform the input to final product (business-to-
you.com, 2019).
Outbound logistics: Outbound logistics enable the company to deliver the final product to the
customers.
Marketing & sales: Marketing and sales will help the company to make effective planning
and strategies in such a way that it can lead the entire firm towards success.
Service: Service refers to the process of providing proper maintenance program to the
customers, which will enable the company to gain customers’ satisfaction in an effective
manner.
Roles and responsibilities
It is important for NHS to have a clearly defined, agreed and documented roles and
responsibilities for each individual or group, who are involved in the initiative. Defining and
responsibilities of each individual or group would enable NHS in building consensus or
understanding the opportunities and challenges regarding the initiative (covwarkpt.nhs.uk,
2016). At the outset, it is crucial to define reporting arrangements, including the content and
frequency of daily reports and the way of dealing with budding issues or risks, arising outside
of the regular reporting cycle.
Roles and structures are as follows:
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 The steering committee or the sponsoring group, which is the driving force of the
initiatives, providing top-level endorsement and investment decision in accordance
with the objective and direction of the initiative
 The project board, which is an executive level management group, which all the
interested parties, including identified internal and external suppliers in NHS
represent, A list of group members should be supplied in the implementation plan
with the usage of a project board.
 The project or program manager, who is endowed with the responsibility of managing
operations of the project along with the project team.
 The senior officer or the project sponsor of NHS is responsible, who has a significant
role to play in the successful delivery of the initiative in this scenario. However, it is
needed for the officer to inculcate sufficient expertise, independence and time for
committing to the project (emeraldinsight.com, 2016). Besides, they are also
responsible for the supply of names, implementation, contact details, positions, for
active management in the implementation plan.
NHS needs to engage and communicate with the stakeholders. NHS needs to involve various
tools, techniques and skills in order to engage and communicate with stakeholders
effectively.
In order to ensure a good understanding of the stakeholder environment, few considerations
should be done, including:
 The identification of stakeholders (emeraldinsight.com, 2017)
 Their interests in the project in accordance with their impact
 Their engagement capacity
 The level of active participation in the project
Implementation plan should have an introduction are as follows:
 The description of the policy objectives along with its possible outcomes
 Description of the policy context highlighting the underlying needs or problems
 Description of the delivery model or strategy for the achievement of policy
objective would be stated the way of delivering the outputs precisely and the way
of achieving the end goal (covwarkpt.nhs.uk, 2016).
 Stakeholders should understand the implementation plan easily.
 It should have effective stakeholders as the target audience.
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Engaging stakeholders
It is important for all organizations to have stakeholder engagement in order to engage
relevant stakeholders for achieving an effective outcome. They play a key role in providing
the organization with useful information for shaping the implementation of the initiative
related to policy, program or project level (health.org.uk, 2017). The stakeholders of NHS
include,
 Academy for Healthcare Science (AHCS)
 National School of Healthcare Science (NSHCS)
 North West Healthcare Science Network
 Healthcare Science Professional Bodies
 Academic Health Science Networks
The primary elements of effective engagement are as follows:
 Involvement of the right stakeholders
 Ensuring an effective approach along with effective interactions
 Management of expectations
 Utilization of information, given by the stakeholders
NHS needs to ensure active involvement of its stakeholders throughout its policy life cycle,
which includes developing, implementing, delivering the policy, along with reviewing each
stage of the policies (england.nhs.uk, 2017). It is crucial for NHS to take the feedbacks of its
stakeholders into consideration and incorporate them for managing the expectations of the
stakeholders before engagement, during the time of the engagement and after the
engagement. Outlining the most appropriate times for engaging stakeholders is crucial for the
implementation plan along with the way of managing expectations for supporting the delivery
of the initiative.
Stakeholder engagement approach needs to be tailored to NHS’s initiatives through the usage
of a mix of methods reflecting the aim of the engagement and the stakeholders’ nature
(emeraldinsight.com, 2016). NHS needs to resort to identify the capacities and capabilities
already existing within government for delivering the stakeholder engagement approach
along with harnessing expertise from other agencies having experience regarding undertaking
of identical engagement activities.
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Few other key things needed to be considered during the planning of stakeholder engagement
are as follows:
 The impact of stakeholder engagement along with its way of interaction with the rest
of project
 The impact of stakeholders risks’ on delivery
 The impact of other risks on engagement with stakeholders
 The way of monitoring, reviewing and evaluating stakeholder engagement.
Managing risk
Every organization needs to have efficient manager who would plan its operations and would
deal with complexity, uncertainty and ambiguity effectively. It is crucial for organizations to
understand the potential problems arising during implementation, which would enable them
in reducing the likelihood of those occurrences. Hence, effective engagement is required for
organizations, who would formulate effective strategy for managing the potential problems
and managing their impacts (england.nhs.uk, 2017). NHS’s management team plays an
essential part in implementing planning and providing a structured way for identifying,
mitigating, accepting and assigning responsibility to the risks affecting successful
implementation.
 Organizations may confront with certain risks, which can be defined as obstacles in
the path of achieving objectives. However, risk can turn out to be a threat for an
organization or an opportunity.
 Identifying risks and potential issues in project management at an early stage is not
valued and is missed quite often. However, identifying potential risks and issues at the
outset is necessary (nhsinvolvement.co.uk, 2017)
 During project start out phase in order to make them recognizable, acknowledgeable
along with its mitigation
In NHS, it is necessary to populate and update risk and issues logs at the start of the project
on a regular basis along with maintain them as live documents, which the project team can
assess through a shared drive. NHS have an audit trail for ensuring that with the identification
of risks and issues, followed by its mitigation, all steps and actions would be detained.
The organization resorts to identify a risk or issue, followed by its recording and registering
in a detailed way. The issue or risk is evaluated in accordance with the likelihood of its
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