Principles

HEE’s Operating Model principles guide how we carry out our work. They build on our values and strengthen working across our functions, programmes, and regions, in partnership with NHSE&I and the wider system. The detailed descriptors below support the application of principles to national and regional working to enable our relationship with ICSs.

• Integration – ‘we collaborate with ICSs by default’. Our Regions are where our business comes together to lead our collaborative relationship with ICSs. We ensure that all parts of HEE are mutually supportive in meeting our priorities, collaborating with NHSE&I to ensure education and workforce is integrated into population health and service planning and delivery.
• Subsidiarity – ‘we make decisions and carry out actions at the most local level possible’. Our distributed leadership ensures our Regions are central to delivery and have the freedom, support, and accountability within a clear governance framework to make decisions and lead activity within the wider system.
• Multi-professional – ‘we are multi-professional by default’. Diverse teams of health and care professionals with complementary skills and experience deliver better and sustained outcomes. We approach our roles and activity multi-professionally.
• Sustainability – ‘our work maximises the sustainability of supply, services and health and healthcare improvement’. Covid-19 proved we need resilience and agility to respond effectively. We also need to ensure the economic and environmental sustainability of HEE, our health and care, and education and training systems, whilst supporting ICSs in broader social and economic development.
• Continuous Improvement – ‘we continuously improve the quality of education and training; services and health outcomes, whilst reducing unwarranted variation’. We approach work utilising improvement methodology to play our part in improving the quality of education, services, and health outcomes. This approach embeds our duty to promote and use research, evidence, data, and insights. We share successes and learn lessons to reduce unwarranted variation and maximise fairness in use of resources.