Community Equipment Service Review

The In-Form Solutions team were jointly commissioned by Liverpool CCG & the City Council to review the community equipment service provided by an NHS provider in Merseyside. This was undertaken at a highly challenging period during the pandemic resulting in developing an agile project plan to minimise any service disruption.

The review scoped the current service provision by detailing both the capital and revenue resource requirements. We assessed and quantified the likely demand in service over the next ten years. This involved detailed mapping of service demand to thousands of community equipment items and categories which enabled us to quantify and cost likely demand by equipment type and service user/s. This formulated stock control and distribution methodology incorporating including new atomisation to fulfil demand. We reflected customer and commissioner feedback from individual meetings and a survey to inform the way forward and to identify gaps in service provision.

The review undertook national and international benchmarking exercise with other service providers including commercial local authority and NHS providers. This identified alternative commercial models and we gained significant material including photographs and market knowledge which helped to not only formulate options, but it also defined what “good” would look like and identified new innovative products and ways of working. We then undertook a detailed option appraisal containing a costed demand model. These were discussed and considered at project meetings involving stakeholders to enable the making of realistic and acceptable recommendations with timelines for the way forward.

The key activities and deliverables included:

• Production of a full service review of Community Equipment services throughout Merseyside.
• A ten-year assessment of future demand for services.
• An assessment of current service provision including a costed assessment and then scenario setting for costing future demand.
• A market assessment of alternative service provision both in the UK and overseas.
• A costed option appraisal.
• A full set of recommendations and development plan with timelines.

The outcomes:

These recommendations were presented, discussed and accepted by the group with feedback from a senior Director  “this is the most progress I have seen on the potential of the equipment service in all the time I have worked in Liverpool”.