The role of peer support and challenge in improving systems

Our Leading Integrated Peer Support programme, offered jointly with NHS Providers and Local Government Association, has already supported 18 integrated care systems to develop and improve but that wouldn’t have been possible without the support of our peers – but what exactly is the role of a peer?  

What is the role of a peer? 

Peers understand the current challenges faced by systems and places bringing credibility, trust and mutual respect to the improvement process. They engage and listen, explore and question, and work as a team to bring innovative ideas and experiences from elsewhere. 

Peers not only support and challenge they also benefit from the places they visit and always take back learning and practice that will help their own organisations. 

They provide a 'strategic or practitioner perspective' and 'critical friend' challenge. Peers help build capacity, confidence and sustainability by challenging practice and sharing knowledge and experience. 

A peer is someone who is currently working within the local government (officer or member), health, or voluntary community sector enterprise (VCSE), and dedicates some of their time to sector-led improvement activity in other systems, places, or councils. The Leading Integration Peer Support (LIPS) programme also worked with people who no longer work in the sector but offer their time to deliver improvement support.  

Introducing Steve Bedser 

Steve Bedser has been a peer for more than ten years and brings vast experience both through his own business experience consulting in leadership and organisational development, as well as background working in the NHS and local government. .  

He started his career as a health promotion specialist in public health and when he left the NHS he was working as Director of Primary Care in a primary care trust. He has also been an elected member and was Cabinet Member of Health and Wellbeing in Birmingham responsible for health, public health, adult social care and housing.  

He has engaged in a range of peer support from being part of a peer review team, working alongside other peers, as well as offering support to individuals. He said that every time he goes into somewhere as a peer, he comes away with far more than he had contributed himself.  

“Personally I have found the work rewarding because I am trusted and brought into confidence from the outset and given privileged access to people’s day to day work and I get the job satisfaction of helping people make change and make a difference.” 

Introducing Matthew Taylor 

Matthew joined the NHS Confederation as Chief Executive in June 2021 and has been working as a peer throughout the LIPS programme, bringing with him extensive depth of experience in government and public policy. 

Matthew is a high-profile public figure who has had a distinguished career at the heart of public policy for the last 20 years. He led the RSA for 15 years and transformed the organisation into a global institution, with 30,000 fellows and a high-profile and influential research programme. 

Before that he was Chief Adviser on Political Strategy to Prime Minister Tony Blair, and he also ran the Institute for Public Policy Research for four years. He is a widely known commentator on policy, politics and public service reform and regularly appears on national media programmes. 

The role of the peer within the LIPs programme 

LIPs delivers tailored support, and peers have been involved in conducting 1:1s, facilitating workshops and meetings, and conducting peer reviews.  

Peers bring significant value to the LIPs programme by helping with partnership working, they also offer support on implementation, navigating legislative change and progressing against local ambitions/priorities. Fundamentally they help to ‘hold the mirror up’ to the range of views, challenges and opportunities to help systems and places agreed the next steps and formulate action. 

This approach draws on the LGA’s long-established model, and convenes a team of trained peers, including current or former NHS and local authority chief executives and senior leaders.