Developing the Children and Young People’s Diagnostic Strategy for Cheshire and Merseyside

We developed a dedicated children and young people’s chapter for the wider Cheshire and Merseyside Diagnostics Strategy, helping to ensure that the region’s long-term plans reflect the needs of younger patients as well as adults. The chapter clearly aligns with national diagnostics policy, the NHS 10 Year Health Plan, and emerging best practice for paediatric and adolescent services. The chapter focused on parity of esteem between children’s and adult diagnostics, equity of access across the system, and a needs-led approach to service design.

The Cheshire and Merseyside Diagnostics Programme embedded our recommendations within the regional five-year vision and took them forward for implementation.

The Challenge

The Cheshire and Merseyside Diagnostics Programme undertook system-wide engagement to develop a unified diagnostics strategy. When initially published, the strategy did not include sufficient detail on children and young people’s diagnostic pathways, capacity or future requirements.

The Cheshire and Merseyside Diagnostics Programme commissioned us to develop a dedicated children and young people’s chapter for integration into the wider strategy. The aims of the work were to:

• Respond to the existing regional and national diagnostics strategy, articulating how children and young people’s diagnostic services must evolve in line with national priorities, service standards and technological advances.
• Undertake a robust, evidence led assessment of the current provision, identifying unwarranted variation, gaps in access, and areas of inequity across the system.
• Propose clear, deliverable changes to ensure diagnostic capacity and models of care were responsive to population need, demand growth and clinical risk.
• Secure endorsement from the Diagnostics Programme, commissioners and wider stakeholders to ensure the chapter was fully integrated and influential within the overall strategy.

Our Approach

We worked collaboratively across the system to define paediatric diagnostic specialties, activity and capacity, with a focus on equitable access and sustainable models of care.

We delivered a comprehensive programme of engagement to capture system-wide and organisational perspectives, including executive meetings, stakeholder workshops, 1:1 discussions, interviews, and collaborative working sessions with senior leaders, operational teams, and partner organisations. This enabled us to test assumptions, identify practical constraints, gather diverse insights, and develop proposals informed by both strategic priorities and operational realities. We iteratively refined the content through formal governance routes, ensuring alignment with national guidance and learning from national and international best practice. This final chapter was clinically and strategically aligned and explicitly responsive to the needs of children and young people.

The Outcome

We successfully responded to the existing strategy and developed a dedicated children and young people’s chapter that was backed by key stakeholders, and integrated into the final Diagnostics Strategy. This translated the identified gap into a clear, system-wide contribution to the region’s five-year vision for diagnostics.

Impact

This work did more than add detail to the strategy; it recognised children and young people as a core consideration within Cheshire and Merseyside’s long-term diagnostics vision. By turning an identified gap into an endorsed, system-wide chapter, the programme created a stronger foundation for more equitable planning, future service development and investment.

To find out how we can support strategy development, system planning and service transformation, contact our team or explore more of our work.