Supported by The Health Foundation, UCLPartners - a health innovation partnership - has published a measurement toolkit for health anchors.
The toolkit has been developed in collaboration with colleagues from NHS England, Health Education England, Local Government, Scottish Government, NHS Ayrshire & Arran and the Healthcare Inequalities Improvement Team. It aims to support anchor measurement, which is vital to understanding the effectiveness of interventions and actions, and to help organisations to select approaches that work for them without duplicating effort and wasting scarce resources.
The toolkit includes a ‘menu’ of indicators, categorised by 11 areas of anchor activity, from which it is proposed that anchor institutions and partnerships are able to choose, based on what matters to them and their communities, actions that are likely to have the biggest impact within their local context. It also includes a logic model, developed to demonstrate the relationship between anchor activities and outcomes across specific categories.
Recognition of the role of the NHS as an anchor institution has grown over a number of years, and there are many examples of Trusts taking independent action within their own communities. Anchors have an opportunity and a responsibility to improve the health, wealth and wellbeing of their local populations, and to reduce inequalities, through the way they strategically, and intentionally, manage their resources and operations. By changing and targeting the way they employ staff, their procurement practices, and how they use their significant estate (land and buildings), anchor institutions can contribute to environmental sustainability, and by working in partnership can have a positive impact on the social determinants of health.
Commenting in the foreword of the related report, Dr Dominique Allwood, Chief Medical Officer and Dr Jenny Shand, Chief Strategy Officer, both at UCLPartners say: “We hope that these resources will be helpful, and will support health anchors and their partners to better understand their anchor work, demonstrate the value of their activities, and develop their anchor activities and strategies to optimise impact.”
