The Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust (RLBUHT) – Pre-'Assuring' the Decision-Making Process of Re-development

Client challenge

The Trust was in the early stages of planning for the replacement of the Royal Liverpool University Hospital.  The outcome of the first phase of the project, namely determining the site for the new hospital, was key to the success of subsequent work and for the purpose of the eventual outline business case, therefore, appropriate stakeholder involvement and ownership was critical.

What did we do?

Article 13 began by carrying out a scoping study to establish representative stakeholders and mapped them against the socio-demographic profiles of the three pre-defined areas. 

The scoping study led to the development of a framework, which formed the basis of RLBUHT’s planned engagement for phase one of the project.  The framework identified gaps, areas of vulnerability and instances where certain types of stakeholders were not proportionately represented or may have been overlooked.

Article 13 made recommendations for what communication was appropriate by reviewing generally available survey methods with their respective advantages and disadvantages in terms of reach and cost.  This was augmented by a review of other recent communication avenues for consultation on service development.

Finally, to enable RLBUHT to make an assured decision on weighting Article 13 reviewed the current debate as well as other weighting systems and made recommendations for the most appropriate system to be used in the process.

How did we break the cycle?

Article 13 combined expertise in consultation assurance with a rigorous approach to work with the client team to identify vulnerabilities and build a new approach and process to consultation which fitted both with the aims of the Trust and stakeholder consultation best practice.  Article 13 also has a broad range of experience in the NHS and therefore was able to bring different insights to the project.

© Article 13 2006