Become an Acute Network member
Benefit from support that empowers your leadership role at place level and within integrated care systems.
We provide a voice for acute trusts, integrated providers and ambulance services, supporting you by influencing national policy, sharing good practice and bringing you together with leaders across the health and care system.
Who is the Acute Network for?
- NHS acute trusts and foundation trusts
- Integrated providers who operate across acute, community, mental health and ambulance services
- Ambulance service trusts.
In addition to the Acute Network, being a member of the NHS Confederation means that our acute and integrated provider members can also benefit from our other Confederation member forums, professional development programmes and connections across the system, including with our networks for integrated care systems, primary care networks and federations and CCGs.
Find out more about what we do and become a member by getting in touch.
What we do
We influence:
- As we feed into the development and implementation of the ten-year plan, we are engaging extensively to ensure the needs of our acute members are heard and understood. In addition, we have programmes of work focused on the government’s three major shifts and what they mean for the services that you deliver.
- We ensure the concerns, challenges and views of our members are heard at a strategic and national level to help drive policy change and directives to support the recovery. We focus on highlighting and communicating the current climate in acute care and influencing national policymaking and legislation, both in direct discussion with policymakers and through the media.
- We host a range of roundtables and engagement sessions to allow leaders to share their views, experience and points of concerns that we can use to lobby for change. This includes a bespoke channel for clinical leaders to feed into our influencing work on issues that matter most to them.
- We celebrate members’ work and actively seek out opportunities to tell positive stories through the media, as well as raising concerns where appropriate, helping policymakers and the public to understand the challenges faced by acute and ambulance providers.
- We connect members with other parts of the system and help to ensure that the role of all types of acute NHS providers is understood and accounted for in all system discussions.
- Our newly formed advisory board is made up of chief executives in the acute sector and helps to underpin our activities on members’ behalf, giving direction and oversight. We talk to members on a daily basis and make sure their insights are turned into action.
We support improvement:
- Our popular peer learning and support programme for first-time provider chief executives has now benefited more than 100 chief executives, the vast majority of whom are acute sector leaders. We will be recruiting the next cohort this spring and welcome expressions of interest.
- We create spaces to debate and spark innovation to support new ways of working at organisation, place and system level. Our forums meet regularly to help leaders think through and address challenging and complex issues. They include dedicated spaces for chief executives, operational leaders and acute clinical leaders.
- Through our interface improvement development programmes and associated learning hub, we provide targeted, practical improvement support to assist members to work more effectively across the interface between sectors, including primary care and mental health.
- Our peer learning sets and roundtable discussions link members’ senior teams with peers across England, Wales and Northern Ireland, creating safe spaces for them to discuss issues outside of their normal circles and offering an opportunity to share best practice and learn from each other.
- We identify, showcase and spread good practice across our membership and the wider health and care system through our growing library of improvement insights.
- We also deliver a programme of wider work to support non-executive directors, including events, newsletters and best practice publications. Our Non-Executive Leaders Network meets bi-monthly and offers a chance to connect with chairs and non-executive leaders in other parts of the country to discuss challenges and learn from guest speakers.