The need

There are significant challenges in the health and social care systems, which have been well-documented both in research and in the media.

These problems impact both the people who receive support and the people who provide it. We can see this from increases in complaints, the number of services requiring improvement or are inadequate, and high staff turnover rates.

Time for a big change

We believe that it’s time for a radical rethinking of the way we work, rather than just making tweaks to a system that’s simply not working.

Research has shown that people working in self-managed teams are more satisfied than those working in traditional teams, which is why we have brought self-management to the Wellbeing Teams model. We were inspired by Buurtzorg in the Netherlands, who have over 10,000 nurses in self-managing teams – with excellent satisfaction rates for people and staff. They have low overhead costs of 8% against typical industry costs of 25%. We are this inspiration to deliver a model that works in the UK context, reducing the number of levels of hierarchy and keeping daily decisions as close to the person as possible.

Self-management is one of our key differences, but it’s not the only one. We’ve developed a robust set of processes that make Wellbeing Teams really stand out from traditional ways of working; and we’re starting to see great results for the people we support and for our staff. If you’d like to join us in spreading the Wellbeing Teams model, we provide training and development for providers as well as being open to new opportunities for commissioning by local authorities.

12 ways that Wellbeing Teams are different

How we will spread Wellbeing Teams

Information for commissioners

Community Circles

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