Essex Child and Family Wellbeing
Since piloting outcomes-based commissioning with HCRG Care Group in 2018, the Essex Child and Family Wellbeing contract is now fully aligned with the national Common Outcomes Framework. Through Family Hubs and partnerships, Essex is showing how integrated services beyond a building can join up health, housing, education and social care to deliver high standards of care – and change community health for good.
Essex Child and Family Wellbeing
Essex County Council is a pioneering Local Authority in that it was early to adopt an outcomes-based model when commissioning pre birth to 19 and specialist services contracts.
Instead of measuring the success of a contract by its outputs, it embraced the measuring of personal outcomes that are bespoke to a service user’s needs, such as whether they feel more safe, connected or confident in their day-to-day life. HCRG Care Group was part of a soft launch of this outcomes approach with Essex in 2018 – and its considerable success was part of what led Essex County Council to renew our contract.
Visit Service WebsiteServices include:
- 12 Family Hubs
- School Nursing
- Health Visiting
- Community Paediatric Medical Services
- Designated Medical Officer
- Occupational Therapy
- Physiotherapy
- Speech and Language Therapy
- Children’s Community Nursing
- Specialist School Nursing
- Children's Community Dietetics
- Allergy Clinic
- Continence Service
- Looked After Children Service
This service is led by
Robert Flack
Regional Director
Having undertaken leadership roles in the commercial, not for profit, social enterprise and NHS sectors, Robert now works to continuously improve our teams, relationships and services at HCRG Care Group.
In the last two years the approach has evolved to become fully aligned with the national Common Outcomes Framework
As a result we’re continuing to see and hear far more than a traditional KPI would reveal – the human story, the service users’ voices, and not just whether an appointment occurred, but whether it made a difference.
This is all critical to us achieving high standards of service delivery, in line with our Quality Promise, so we can build upon the ‘Good’ rating the CQC gave the Essex service during its last inspection in 2019.
Our Family Hub model is outworking the vision of integrated service provision without the boundaries of a building
The setup of the model required upfront investment in transformation, but that original investment is now enabling us to reach families wherever they are, with multiple partners joining together to offer joined up solutions, sharing information so they can address some of the wider factors that affect health. We can see that a child’s behaviour is aggravated by parent stress that’s caused by the damp in the family’s accommodation – and we can link the Children’s Centre work to housing.
When the links in the chain are weak
We’ve been seeking to strengthen relationships. For instance, when health visitors and school nurses made referrals to social care, they were often rejected, even though a number of meetings were taking place between them and social care. But when we began embedding health visitor staff within social care, it created a new level of understanding between them, and the conversion rate of referrals increased from 30 to 60%.
Where links are strong, we’re strengthening them further
As one childminder partner put it after a Family Hub event, “I have been a Registered Childminder for 25 years and have never seen the childminding community come together in the way that they have with these learning sessions… they are going on to attend conferences and take qualifications because they have a new confidence in their practice.”
Where access is weak, we’re also building new inroads
For instance, we’re now working with temporary accommodation to get residents on our radar even before they register with a GP, so we can outreach to them and act swiftly to support.
Looking ahead
We’re investing in leadership coaching and wellbeing accreditation to keep up our reputation for quality teams. We’re also introducing a shared pathway and care plan after the 2–3-year Integrated Review, and embedding new models such as the Link Speech & Language Therapy programme, which we trialled in 11 schools in 2024, and has been helping us to streamline triage and pathways of care.
Visit Service WebsiteWhat’s happening at a glance
Services are being delivered through 12 Family Hubs and a strong network of schools, community partners and voluntary organisations.
Delivering in line with the Common Outcomes Framework is enabling more personalised care pathways and a more meaningful measurement of impact.
High performance, strong results, and positive family feedback is showing that outcomes-based commissioning works.
Across 17,074 completed pathways between 01 April 2024 and 31 March 25, 98% are showing positive improvement.
A digital front door is improving service user experience and outcomes in a way that Essex County Council commended us for in our 2024-25 Quality Report.
New initiatives are being launched like ADHD School Training, developed with Essex SEND teams, which is giving teachers practical strategies to better support children with ADHD in the classroom.
Our partners for this service
