Voluntary, Community, and Social Enterprise Collaboration Services.

NAVCA is the national body for local VCSE infrastructure organisations in England. We provide resources, advocacy, and national coordination for our 180 members, including 18 organisations within NHS England’s South West Region. Our members play a critical role in supporting voluntary and community action by linking hundreds of thousands of local charities, voluntary groups, and social enterprises, ensuring they thrive and deliver essential community services. NAVCA was one of NHS England’s learning and development partner, in its "Embedding the VCSE in ICSs" programme and supporting in the co-design the Quality Development Tool. Since 2021 we have facilitated a national Peer Network that brings ICS and VCSE leaders together to share insights and best practices, ensuring that learning from system experiences informs national policy and system-wide improvements. This network has now evolved with NAVCA supporting the set up and providing the ongoing secretariate function for Alliance42; the new national network of VCSE Alliances working with Integrated Care Systems across England, helping to drive collaboration, share best practice, and influence system development. NAVCA acts as a national enabler of VCSE participation, supporting Alliances to engage across neighbourhood, place, system, and regional levels. Our role is not just to facilitate conversations, but to build capacity, strengthen influence, and ensure the VCSE sector helps shape system design and national policy direction. The Need NHS England’s South West Regional Team has a well-established peer network for VCSE Alliances across the region’s seven Integrated Care Systems (ICSs). Since July 2024, NAVCA has independently facilitated the network, with NHSE SW VCSE leads as welcomed participants; a unique arrangement nationally. NAVCA also plays a critical role in sharing insights from the network across regional and national forums, strengthening its impact. While the operating environment remains uncertain, the role of the VCSE sector in health transformation will only grow. As systems deliver the three NHS shifts, strengthen neighbourhood health, and evolve strategic commissioning, the VCSE sector’s role as convenor, partner, and innovator is essential. There is increasing demand on the network to share insight, foster connections, and co-develop solutions to regional delivery challenges. Healthy neighborhoods are recognised as a foundation for long-term improvement, and investing in the VCSE sector continues to deliver strong social and economic value. Structured, independent facilitation will be vital to support the South West’s ambitions for system transformation. However, NAVCA’s support goes beyond event facilitation, enabling VCSE Alliances to contribute to regional priorities through co-production, influence, and shared delivery of transformation initiatives. Over the next three years, facilitation will: • Work towards a sustainable model for VCSE Alliance engagement post-2028, exploring options for funding, support, and integration. • Support clarity around the role of region, system, and place in strategic commissioning, including how VCSE Alliances can help shape commissioning strategies that embed prevention, equity, and community insight. • Embed learning from winter planning and delivery across ICSs, feeding into regional reviews and preparedness. Additionally, we propose expanding facilitation to better support cross-sector workshops on regional priorities, enabling greater VCSE participation and collaborative solutions to workforce, prevention, neighbourhood health, and other system challenges. This proposal sets out our approach to achieving this. Delivery to Date Over the past year, NAVCA has successfully: • Reviewed and refreshed network membership in line with each system. • Co-designed the network's purpose and ways of working collaboratively with members and the NHSE SW VCSE leads. And into the regional programme areas, and with ICBs via Chief Executives. • Increased engagement, ensuring all seven ICS areas are now consistently involved. • Supported the development of regular meeting schedules to facilitate timely feedback to NHSE SW VCSE coordination meetings. • Established a monthly catch-up with the NHSE SW team to integrate national feedback and co-design meeting agendas. • Supported the codesign and codelivery of two face-to-face workshops (Quality Development Tool, Workforce) with a third session on Prevention in progress. • Developed infrastructure for regional cross-sector sharing of good practice examples and information-sharing. • Informed and influenced the design of a national alliance network, leveraging the maturity of regional collaborative infrastructure in the South West. • Provided the NHSE SW VCSE coordination group and teams with clear and structured communication pathways via and with VCSE Alliance leads, strengthening strategic engagement. How the Network Supports NHSE South West Regional Teams • Enhances Strategic Alignment: Strengthens collaboration between NHSE South West and VCSE alliances, ensuring integrated working across all seven ICSs. • Provides a Direct Engagement Mechanism: Offers NHSE a structured and trusted forum to engage with the VCSE sector, gather insights, and co-develop solutions. • Shapes Strategic Commissioning Approaches: Enables VCSE Alliances to actively contribute to the development of regional strategic commissioning by providing insight into community need, aligning neighbourhood-level innovation with system planning, and shaping commissioning approaches that reflect lived experience. • Support System Transformation: Supports joint working on NHSE priorities and enabling system-wide transformation by enabling a more connected, prevention-focused, and community-led health system. • Bridges Regional and National Learning: Ensures that insights from the South West influence national VCSE policy and system design, while also bringing national perspectives into regional discussions. • Strengthens VCSE Participation in Health Systems: Helps NHSE ensure the VCSE sector is fully embedded in ICS structures, improving community engagement and service delivery. • Provides a Single Point of Coordination: Reduces fragmentation by offering NHSE a streamlined, well-facilitated network to interact with multiple VCSE alliances efficiently. • Increases Impact Through Peer Learning: Ensures NHSE benefits from a well-connected and informed VCSE sector, able to deliver innovative solutions that meet regional health challenges. • Supports Development of System Solutions: Provides a platform for VCSE input into designing and delivering system-level solutions, including accelerating the shift towards prevention and community-based care, and shaping approaches to workforce development, such as promoting and growing the mental health and learning disability workforce. Impact Evidence of impact has been gathered from interviews and member surveys. Nationally: The South West is recognised as the exemplar for how NHSE regional teams can embed the VCSE sector into health systems to improve outcomes, reduce demand, and transform public services. Working with the South West via the VCSE Strategic Group (including input from the Alliance Peer Network) provides significant added value to the national VCSE programme. Insights from the region directly inform national policy, guidance, and collaborative working under the New Operating Framework. "The South West is the first region to work in this way and has informed the development of the QDT. We look forward to working as a national/regional team to embed the role of the sector in the 10-year health plan, as the sector will be key to driving the three shifts." Carrie McKenzie, Voluntary Partnerships Senior Manager, National People and Communities Directorate Regionally, The NHSE SW regional team benefits from NAVCA’s expertise and collaborative approach. NAVCA bridges regional NHSE initiatives with alliance leads, bringing a national perspective, cross-regional sector insights, and a deep understanding of the wider VCSE landscape. Their experienced facilitation and community-building approach further enhances engagement and impact. Testimonials from Alliance Members: “It is invaluable to have NAVCA’s wider sector knowledge in the regional network, as well as the link with what is going on nationally in the sector and other alliances.” “The NAVCA Health Lead and Network Facilitator are stars. They support the peers, meet us outside the meeting to ensure our internal regional VCSE coordination group runs seamlessly with the VCSE Alliance Network, and facilitate the network in a way that has strengthened the VCSE Alliance relationships across the Southwest and created a safe space for them to share and learn from each other to increase impact in their systems, and created a positive learning environment to connect across sectors at a regional level. ” “I personally have learnt a huge amount from NAVCA, and their help in developing the link between the regional and VCSE peers meeting has been crucial to our successes and national profile of 'the Southwest way’.” “The facilitation is great - I didn’t used to like these meetings back before as they were too negative for my liking, but they are really good now and full of positive contributions.” Proposed Three-Year Approach 2025/28