The NIHR HS&DR-funded 'Partnering for Improvement in the NHS' project is being led by Dr Justin Aunger, Dr Ross Millar, and Professor Russell Mannion at HSMC along with some other team members across the UK. 

The project has been focusing on the literature side of the project, developing an ‘initial rough theory’ of partnering applicable to buddying, mergers, and hospital networks; a ‘best fit’ analysis of how inter-organisational healthcare partnerships evolve over time; and a programme theory rooted in realist methodology, for how partnerships are supposed to work, why, and for whom. Additionally, the project has contributed to a HSRUK workshop on failure and turnaround in healthcare organisations which can now be viewed online. We now look forward to collecting further primary data (paused due to covid-19) to integrate with these literature findings across a range of settings and partnering types, and hope to be able to share some of our published outputs soon.