Best Legal Services Partnership with the NHS

HSJ Partnership Awards 2024 - Best Legal Services Partnership with the NHS
Best Legal Services Partnership with the NHS
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How to apply

Entries are now closed

Good legal advice can save organisations money, but it can also help to protect their reputation, meet regulatory requirements and deal with new challenges such as setting up joint ventures, and effectively working with other organisations across an ICS. As the NHS continues to evolve, the role of legal services may become even more important in navigating the changing landscape.  

NHS organisations rely on external legal advice for everything from the mundane to the extraordinary – from complex HR disputes, patient safety incidents, through to decisions around tendering services. This award recognises that external legal service providers can play an important complementary role to in-house legal staff, offering expert advice and additional capacity at times of stress.   

Judges are looking for a partnership where legal services and expertise has helped NHS organisations get the results they were looking for whilst delivering value for money. The winners of this award will be able to demonstrate how sound advice and high integrity led to positive outcomes

Eligibility

  • This award is open to any third or private sector legal services provider which works in partnership with an NHS organisation 
  • Projects and partnerships must demonstrate evidence from the past two years up until the awards deadline date 

 

Ambition

  • Describe the context in which legal services or advice were required  
  • Evidence how the partnership could deliver better value than the NHS could manage on its own. 
  • Outline any relevant targets and share how they were developed 

Outcomes

  • Detail how the partnership delivered on expectations. Judges are looking for evidence of good customer service, information sharing, integrity and delivery of service goals  
  • Clearly demonstrate how the NHS organisation has benefited from the partnership in terms of staffing, cost, reducing inefficiencies or ability to provide services. 
  • Provide quantitative or testimonial evidence of positive engagement from in-house legal teams and/or relevant NHS staff members throughout  

Spread

  • What efforts have been made by the project team to disseminate best practice either within the NHS organisation or to other providers of healthcare?  
  • Judges are looking for partnerships which can demonstrate that any knowledge gained as a result of the project has been or has the potential of being shared with other NHS organisations.  

Involvement

  • Describe the working relationship between the two partners, including frequency and depth of communications, and expectation management  
  • Detail the processes put in place to ensure all parties were kept informed of progress and how their input influenced decisions  
  • Share how other relevant stakeholders or interested parties were involved in any process changes 
  • Judges are looking for excellence in communication and information sharing which results in interested groups are bought in to the process.   

Value

  • Describe why and how the partnership has delivered value for money for both the NHS organisation and the public purse 
  • Discuss how any results positively affected other parts of the NHS organisation. Did any of the learnings improve processes or experiences elsewhere?  
  • Provide testimonial evidence of the effectiveness of the partnership from the NHS stakeholders involved 
  • Share any other added value as a result of the partnership 

 

To find out more

For entry enquiries, contact James Elliot on james.elliott@wilmingtonplc.com