Lessons from 10 years of ‘test and learn’

You’re invited: join us to learn from a decade of shared experiences

Keir Starmer’s government is working on a ten-year NHS plan and consulting about the future of social care. We in Public World believe our learning from a decade of ‘test & learn’ projects can and should contribute strongly to both.

In 2015, Buurtzorg founder Jos de Blok asked us to be their partner in Britain and Ireland as more and more public service organisations drew inspiration from the success of their approach to neighbourhood care through self-organised teams.

This led to collaborations with 40+ health, care and housing organisations from the Scottish Highlands to Kent, some of which (unlike our partnership with Buurtzorg) continue today.

Through these ‘test & learn’ projects, we have learnt how greater professional autonomy and responsibility can lead to more relational services and improved job satisfaction and productivity, but also what can get in the way.

Economic modelling of the results has also shown how the more preventative approach produces wider system benefits and cost reductions through less demand on GPs and reablement services and fewer A+E visits and hospital admissions.

Don’t take our word for it. Join us at a special day on Tuesday 18^th March to hear about and discuss:

The benefits for public service professionals and the people they serve in our ‘test & learn’ projects at Guy’s & St Thomas’s NHS Foundation in London, the Thistle Foundation in Scotland, and Newtide Homes in Norfolk;
The organisational and systemic challenges and how to overcome them from academics who have evaluated our projects and analysed the results, including Prof Fiona Ross, CBE, and Dr Rose Rickford of the University of Surrey;
The significance of the lessons of our work for international public service reform, with representatives of Alfred Health, a leading Australian health care provider, who we are hosting for a study visit to learn from our experience;
The scalable potential and systemic benefits of the results of our projects, with analysis from Frontier Economics (who studied our work with East London NHS Foundation Trust) and political scientist Prof Colin Talbot.

The day will be full of great stories and insights from our panellists, but there will also be plenty of time for your own inputs to discussion about how, together, we can build a movement for change, to create and sustain public services with humanity at the heart.

It’s all happening at the award-winning Friends Meeting House venue in London’s Euston Road, with easy access from all the capital’s railway terminus stations, and with time to get to know other participants over a hearty lunch produced from organic, seasonal ingredients.

To combine expert inputs with active participation, we are restricting this one-off workshop to no more than 35 participants

Tickets are £295 per person, including refreshments, lunch and a 25% discount on all Public World blended learning programmes, consultancy and coaching until 31st Dec 2025.

Tuesday 18^th March, 9.30am – 4.30pm, at Friends House, 173-177 Euston Road, London, NW1 2BJ

🎟️https://bit.ly/BuyTickets18March

Read on to learn more about who will be joining us on this day . . .

A representative of the Thistle Foundation in Edinburgh.

Cepta Hamm is a retired nurse who was director of community nursing at Guy’s & St Thomas’s NHS Foundation Trust in London when our ‘test & learn’ project supported the adoption of an adapted form of the Buurtzorg model there. She is now an associate consultant with Public World.

Sam Greenacre is managing director of Flagship Homes, part of the Newtide social housing group, and led the introduction of self-organised team work there with Public World’s help.

Professor Fiona Ross is Emerita Professor and former Dean of the Joint Faculty of Health, Social Care and Education at Kingston University and was an author of the evaluation report of our ‘test & learn’ with Guy’s & St Thomas’s NHS FT led by Professor Vari Drennan,MBE.

Dr Rose Rickford is a qualitative social scientist whose PhD was awarded by the University of York in 2024 for her investigation into the response of grassroots community organisations to the crisis of the Covid-19 pandemic in England and Wales. She also analysed and reported the results of the Transforming Integrated Care in the Community project and is a Public World associate researcher.

Felice Borghmans is manager in clinical service design at Alfred Health in Melbourne, which is currently developing a Hospital at Home service. She was recently awarded a PhD by Monash University.

Kat Deyes and Nick Woolley are with Frontier Economics and led its study of the potential scalable and systemic benefits arising from the results of our ‘test & learn’ project with East London NHS Foundation Trust.

Prof Colin Talbot is a political scientist and Emeritus Professor of Government at the University of Manchester with three decades experience of working with various branches of the UK government and civil service, and in some 25 other countries. He is a Public World associate.

Dr Stephen Commins is a specialist in essential services delivery in fragile and conflict-affected states (FCAS) and in local government roles in disaster risk reduction. He was until recently an associate director of global public affairs at the University of California, Los Angeles, and previously Director of Policy and Planning for World Vision International (WVI) and then a Senior Human Development Specialist at the World Bank. He is a co-founder and non-executive director with Public World.

Brendan Martin is co-founder and managing director of Public World with three decades experience in 70 countries worldwide. He has led our ‘test & learn’ projects in some 40 health and care settings in Britain and Ireland since 2015. A journalist by background, he is the author of In the Public Interest? Privatisation and Public Sector Reform (Zed Books, 1993) and of many monographs and chapters in edited collections, including most recently Social Prescribing: Paradigms, Perspectives and Practices (Palgrave, 2024).

Don’t miss out! Book your ticket now.