Managers' Resource Pack: Introduction

This resource pack aims to provide managers and professional leads with information to draw on when they need to influence commissioners and others; particularly important given the current focus on achieving financial balance.

The RCSLT has gathered the information in this pack with the help and support of managers who have already had to negotiate around potential service cuts. We hope it will be the basis for further work on influencing the commissioning agenda. The RCSLT extends thanks to those who have provided information and support during the development of this project.

We have tried to set out some broad principles that we feel managers and professional leads must meet and have also provided examples of existing systems that are being used by SLT managers to provide answers to some of the questions they are asked.

It is in the best interests of patients for managers/professional leads to be proactive in identifying the information their audience groups need to know. Commissioners, for example, may be focused on how many individual patients' therapists are working with but it is essential that they are provided with details of both direct and indirect activity to help them understand the diverse range of functions that SLTs carry out as part of a modernised service

In addition to identifying the benefits of speech and language therapy to patients and communities, managers/professional leads will have to explain the risks/impacts of not providing elements of services, and wherever possible provide evidence and data to support their case.


Inside this section:

• Responding to calls for cuts in your service
• Risk assessments
• Option appraisals
• Responding to calls for cuts in your team
• Skills mixes
• Creating a service specification
• Data gathering
• National drivers
• Useful contacts and resources
  
• Summary