How Verto Is Helping CCGs Manage Their PMOs And Achieve Effective Collaboration
Clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) are responsible for planning and commissioning health care services for their local area. They are responsible for the entire local population and are measured by how much they improve health outcomes.
In order to meet this broad remit CCGs work with a wide range of partners and deliver a wide range of projects.
What is a PMO?
A PMO (programme or project management office) serves as a central point for all a CCG’s projects. An effective PMO will help a CCG make sure it delivers its projects on time, on budget and in line with the project’s stated aims.
Because a PMO collates data from all a CCG’s projects, it gives managers the information they need to identify priorities and target resources. This data will also help the CCG show the tangible service and patient care improvements they are delivering.
A PMO will serve as a centre of excellence, providing control and governance as well as advice and guidance to project managers. This is particularly helpful for project managers who are not formally trained in project management.
Overall, a well-run PMO will help CCGs improve efficiency across the board, leading to savings in time and costs – essential for organisations that are under increasing financial pressure.
How Does Verto Help?
Verto’s project management and collaboration software is specifically designed to:
- Support partnership working by bringing together, on one secure platform, everyone involved in managing and delivering a project. This includes the project’s wider stakeholders.
- Make collaboration easier with tools such as instant messaging, file sharing, real-time updates and notifications.
- Improve practice by linking project outputs with performance outcomes and through best practice templates and controls.
- Strengthen governance and transparency with accurate data, flexible reporting and a clear view of all projects at any given time.
- Standardise practice with a range of templates for key activities in the project cycle.
“18 months on and with over 350 projects loaded we are reaping the rewards of our Verto application.”
NHS Thurrock CCG and Basildon CCG
Comprehensive Support and Training from Verto
We provide support and training to help you set up your PMO and get the most from it once it’s up and running.
We provide full onsite training for your PMO staff and Verto administrators. We can run either train-the-trainer or end-user courses, whichever you prefer.
We can create bespoke workflow and reports to suit the way your CCG operates. We can offer useful insights from our own experience of PMOs and put you in touch with other clients who can share with you what they have learned. We can even set up forums for you to receive valuable feedback from the people who use your projects and services.
And if you need any help once your PMO is in use, our helpdesk team are there for you.
To find out more get in touch. And look out for future blogs where we’ll take a more detailed look at how we support an increasing number of CCGs and now STPs.
Northgate Vehicle Hire, Aylesbury Vale CCG and Perth & Kinross Health & Social Care Partnership All Choose Verto
We are delighted to now include Northgate Vehicle Hire, Aylesbury Vale CCG and Perth & Kinross Health & Social Care Partnership to our list of Verto users.
Northgate Vehicle Hire
Northgate vehicle hire provide van hire and leasing options to businesses as an alternative to purchase, contract hire or lease. With a growing network of 75 branches from Aberdeen to Plymouth their business continues to grow. Their fleet is made up of LCVs from the UK's leading manufacturers, including Mercedes Benz, Ford, VW and Peugeot, and a majority of branches have their own workshops which enables maintenance to be planned and scheduled at times that will cause least disruption to customers. Northgate Vehicle Hire also have a partnership in place with the AA to provide breakdown support and recovery. Verto enables them to maintain communication with their suppliers, while supporting their PMO and the management and delivery of their key projects and programmes.
Aylesbury Vale CCG
Verto has proved popular amongst many CCG's and now Aylesbury Vale CCG has been added to our list of users. The clinically led membership organisation is responsible for commissioning local NHS services to meet the needs of local people. Supporting the development of partnerships between patients, healthcare professionals, social care, voluntary services and commissioners in North Buckinghamshire, Verto is also instrumental in helping Aylesbury Vale CCG support collaboration amongst their project teams and with partner organisations, allowing them to build effective working relationships with other CCGs including Oxfordshire and Milton Keynes.
Perth & Kinross Health & Social Care Partnership
An initiative of Perth & Kinross Council, this strategic commissioning plan has been designed to ensure that the needs of the local community and individuals are met. Perth & Kinross Health & Social Care Partnership use Verto to support their coordinated approach to the way in which care services are delivered. This includes working collaboratively with GPs, hospitals, health workers and social care staff forming integrated partnership arrangements.
Find out more about which organisations are using Verto here.
Gloucestershire CCG use Verto Project Management Sofware
Gloucestershire CCG Background
The CCG is a clinically led membership organisation responsible for commissioning local NHS services to meet the needs of local people. These services include emergency care services, operations or treatments that can be planned in advance, community services and mental health services.
The organisation is placing greater emphasis on prevention, self-care and joining up services, community support and information across health and social care. Alternatives to hospital care are also being developed, including more care, treatment and support at home and in the local community – all of which are delivered under increasing financial constraints.
To achieve this transformation, the CCG is engaged in a portfolio of programmes and projects, working closely with our Providers. The portfolio is overseen by a central PMO team; with a particular focus on the QIPP agenda (our Providers also operate PMOs).
The CCG expects that by using a standard programme management approach, underpinned by an effective PMS, we are more likely to successfully deliver change by ensuring:
- Sufficient board-level support
- Strong leadership
- Realistic expectations of our capacity and ability to deliver change
- Sufficient focus on benefits
- A robust vision of the future (blueprint), well defined and clearly communicated
- Improved capability to change culture
- Good engagement by stakeholders/Providers
Scope
The PMS addresses the management of programmes and projects. It provides the framework for organising and managing resource and investment to deliver all the work required within defined scope, time and cost constraints.
The CCG has established an approach to programme and project management based on industry standard methodologies and terminology (e.g. PRINCE2, MSP).
NHS Herefordshire CCG selects Verto
NHS Herefordshire Clinical Commissioning Group chose Verto to support work collaboration and project management. We asked them why they selected Verto...
“We wanted to find a way that allowed us to have better sight/improved assurance across our whole portfolio of work.
For us as a small NHS CCG we wanted to ensure we were deploying resources more smartly on key priorities, and in particular programmes intended to deliver QIPP savings. Additionally frustrations in organisation that we were spending a lot time reporting to NHS England, joint programme boards and internally and not enough time actually delivering - we wanted things recorded/captured once but used in numerous settings – COUNT principle. We also wanted to improve how individuals managed projects and ensured they undertook robust planning. And finally wanted to improve our: benefits/impact tracking; as well as ensuring remedial action plans in relation to key performance issue were managed and monitored. As a small CCG also we cannot afford a huge PMO function.
We looked at several products. VERTO provided the functionality and flexibility we wanted, and importantly allowed us to adapt it to local processes and governance arrangements.
We have focused on initially using it for those project initiatives that will deliver QIPP savings, but also being a cloud based system we will be using to monitor and manage for example our better care fund and other system wide programmes. VERTO have also worked with us to develop new functionality around benefits tracking that we are deploying, and intending to link with key BI systems.
In the set-up phrase VERTO guys supportive and professional. We have more work to do with colleagues around embedding the system and its use, but this is more of cultural issue that a system issue. So far has been a positive process; and we see huge advantages of how we can use this product going forward from business planning and risk management."
If you would like to talk to us about how Verto can help deliver your programmes please call us on 0844 870 8785