Intelligent solutions for intelligent customers – how handl Group is supporting clients across the public sector and beyond

One of the biggest challenges facing the UK at the moment is a lack of funding for our public sector, even as demand ramps up. While the NHS gets most of the headlines, we’re also seeing a lack of resources for social care, legal services, mental health support and more.

Things need to change, and there’s increasingly a role for the private sector to play.

At a recent conference in London, handl Group CSO Dan Franklin heard first hand some of the issues facing the UK’s stretched public bodies:

“In my experience, public sector organisations don’t have a track record of effective procurement. They’re wedded to a traditional, transactional model of needing something and going out and securing it. That needs to change. The private sector needs to demonstrate full end-to-end solutions. By guiding the private sector, we can improve customer intelligence, move to procurement that focuses more on solving real problems and – crucially – find new ways to add value to the system.”

As consultants and managers across the public sector look to bring in changes to the way they find external support, handl Group’s businesses are expertly positioned to support this much-needed transformation.

Change may be unfamiliar, but the challenges aren’t

“The public and private sector are facing the same challenges. They need robust, cost-effective services and partnerships that work together to deliver real value for money.”

That’s what Expert Witness and Ancillary Services commercial director Caroline Arrowsmith and experts across our group have discovered as we work more closely with public sector bodies.

“They’re all serving the same kinds of people with potentially similar needs but may have different requirements. Modern service users expect a partnership approach for support, they expect digital options and tailored solutions. They’re both things we’re providing around the group with our people, expertise, knowledge and our technology.”

But what about specific challenges faced around the public sector?

We’re aware of those too, as Caroline explains.

“In the NHS, there’s a need for efficient clinically sound services especially in MSK and mental health services. In the legal aid sector, we’ve seen challenges around the legal aid portal, and the adaptations made by the legal sector to accommodate  access to justice. And there’s pressure on spending across the majority of areas in public sector environments. 

“Public sector bodies are focused on reducing risk, providing justifiable and necessary spend whilst ensuring competence and consistency of service.”

How handl Group is already helping customers in all sectors

In delivering key services and expanding access to treatment, justice and expertise, handl Group is already stepping in to support the public sector in a number of ways while continuing to keep up the standard of services we provide to the private sector.

For the NHS, our companies are taking the same kind of expertise that’s helped reduce absences due to MSK issues across the private sector and applying it to public sector service provision. By collaborating across divisions, bringing together Speed Medical’s governance and expertise and EQL’s PHIO tool, we’re able to offer round-the-clock digital, self help treatment. This service  identifies treatment requirements to reduce pain, reduce risk, ensure quality, and manage costs. It’s also accessible 24 hours a day 365 days per year.

Social care is also suffering from reduced public sector spend – something that can cause huge safeguarding issues for our most vulnerable. Over the summer, Advanced CCA has been working closely to ensure that children are still looked after, even as coverage has been interrupted with schools closed. By ensuring social work assessments and their 24/7 programmes are still operating, we’ve ensured a continuity of care and preventative solutions

We’ve also helped manage continuity problems around legal services. After a cybersecurity issue with the Legal Aid portal, public sector problems spilled into the private sector, leading to huge disruptions for many of the criminal law firms we work with.

With the expertise of companies like Foresight, we were able to provide workarounds to keep cases progressing, while extending client payment terms to reduce financial pressure on our customers.

But supporting our customers can’t be reactive. It’s not enough to only respond to challenges as they arise. To support growth for our private customers and keep our public sector customers running smoothly, we need to find new solutions for future problems.

How we’re supporting a more intelligent future for all our customers

“Quality of service, even under financial pressure. That’s what we can offer to all of our customers. And it’s all down to innovation.”

As Caroline says, at handl Group we’re constantly innovating and adapting to changing circumstances. With our expertise and funding, we can move and act quickly. And what we learn in one area can easily be applied elsewhere.

Recently, MLA launched a new venture – Certain Surveyors – to offer fast, reliable RICS level 2 and 3 home surveys and valuations.

And we’re continuing to bring others along with us. We’re soon to launch a new Speed Medical conference, one focused on clinical negligence, that will create new opportunities for our experts and our customers alike.

Caroline sums it up best:

“We’ve got collaboration with our companies, our experts, our customers. Internal and external brands. It’s all about understanding  the  hurdles our clients are navigating and creating the best way to navigate them.

If we’re going to have a public sector we can all be proud of, then it’s time for the private sector to do what it does best in support of public services. To work intelligently, to develop new tools, new techniques and new systems, and to find the capital investment that government funding can’t – or won’t – provide.

The challenges are real, but so are the solutions. And at handl Group, we’re committed to meeting those challenges head-on by doing what we do best. Backing the right businesses, and helping them solve problems.