We have been working alongside health and care professionals and the system leaders of West Essex to tackle some of the most complex issues our health system is facing.

How do we transform the care and support system to prevent people going into hospital on an unplanned basis? And when they do need hospital services, how might we get them home quicker, and safer? How do we work with people to reduce their risk factors against diabetes?

No single organisation holds the answer to these questions, and that means making progress around these types of “wicked issues” calls for a radically different response.

The People Powered Results programme (a joint project of Nesta and the Rapid Results Institute) focuses on the people, relationships and networks that make up health and care systems locally. Teams of front-line staff come together for 100 days to focus on highly ambitious goals, and are given the freedom to test and develop new ideas and approaches (some of which will work, others will not). Leaders shift their focus from “coming up with solutions” to “permissioning” and creating the space and confidence for teams to begin owning and experimenting around tricky issues.

This video tells the story of the community-based teams in West Essex.