Learning and adapting in the Bay Anchor Network

Bringing local anchor organisations together through anchor networks can be a powerful way to boost accountability, share what works, and find opportunities to collaborate around shared priorities. 

This case study from the Bay Anchor Network demonstrates the wide range of positive outcomes that can be achieved through collaboration. 

Packed with honest reflection and learning, it also provides useful insight into some of the challenges that all anchor networks come up against, and the need for anchor networks to continuously reflect, learn and adapt their approach in order to fulfill their potential for creating local impact.  

Background

The Bay Anchor Network (formally known as the Morecambe Bay Anchor Collaborative) was established in 2020/21 by Morecambe Bay Clinical Commissioning Group, which also took on the convening role. The partnership brought together local councils, NHS organisations, large employers, voluntary and community sector organisations, and education providers.

The ambition was to harness the collective influence and resources of these organisations to improve population health, tackle health inequalities, and deliver social, economic, and environmental benefits across six priority areas. The network was conceived as a community of common interest, deliberately balancing a degree of formality with space for relationships, emerging ideas, and new opportunities to develop.

From the outset, the network brought together key partners to work towards a co-produced vision and charter. In order to then turn shared priorities into tangible action, the network created focused workstreams for priority areas, enabling members to identify and focus on tangible projects to take forward across the network. The following sections showcase the work that was done, the outcomes achieved, and the lessons learned along the way.

Key activity areas

1. Procurement 

The procurement workstream brought together subject matter experts to explore how to increase local spend and embed social value in purchasing. Specific areas of focus for the group included: 

• Exploring research opportunities to identify ways of creating social value with suppliers 

• Agreeing common language around procurement and Community Wealth Building across partners 

• Scoping a Community Wealth Building strategy to establish how much the network spends locally, how much of this can be influenced and the potential impact of doing so. 

2. Environmental Sustainability 

Members within the Environmental Sustainability workstream came together to explore opportunities to adopt and influence sustainable environmental practices across network organisations and within local communities. Projects included: 

• Identifying opportunities to increase active travel of the workforce 

• Mapping green spaces available on anchor sites. 

3. Widening Access to Quality Work 

The Widening Access into Quality Work group looked at opportunities for supporting people into work, developing opportunities within our communities and creating workplaces that are fair, inclusive and support health and well-being. Achievements include: 

• Proving support to secure the ICB wide bid for WorkWell funding 

• Development of population data packs for comparison with workforce post code to identify opportunities to encourage a workforce that is representative of the local population 

• Engagement with underrepresented groups to identify barriers to anchor employment 

4. Staff Health Improvement (Bay Wellness) 

The Bay Wellness group was formed as a sub-group of the Widening Access to Quality Work group to develop and support an inclusive staff health and wellbeing programme. Achievements of the group include: 

• Development and roll out of a personalised wellbeing passport to support effective one to ones and appraisals. 

• Joint suicide awareness training (via the Orange Button Community scheme)

• Mapping workplace accreditation opportunities 

• Mapping and sharing learning across staff networks 

• Established a task and finish group for tackling racism in the community 

• Shared resources and policies e.g. supporting women in the workplace 

5. Anti-Racism Task and Finish group 

Another group formed from the Widening Access to Quality Work workstream has looked at Anti-Racism in recruitment. Leveraging its convening power, the network sparked public conversations on workforce diversification and addressed local barriers - such as the region’s predominantly white demographic - that were hindering inclusive recruitment. Group achievements include: 

• Creation of a flowchart with Cumbria and Lancashire Constabulary to outline the steps for reporting hate crime incidents.

• Joint communications campaign e.g. for this year's Race Equality Week. 

Refining the approach

Alongside these achievements, the experience of running the network also offered valuable opportunities for learning and reflection. As the network evolved, some approaches needed adjustment, and participating organisations sometimes faced capacity or engagement constraints. Reflecting on these experiences highlighted important lessons about strengthening collaboration, clarifying roles, and maximising impact as a network.

Some of the key themes that emerged are outlined below:

1. Shared ownership and leadership

An early decision for one organisation to host each of the anchor workstreams revealed the importance of shared ownership. When a single organisation led a workstream, partners were less likely to take ownership of the domain area and to drive projects forward. As a result, some of the subgroups focused more on opportunities for shared learning as opposed to working on initiatives with tangible outcomes.

The workstreams which had the most success at maintaining momentum and producing outputs were those focusing on Work and Health (Widening Access to Quality Work, Bay Wellness, Anti-Racism) due to the devolved leadership with partners taking on specific responsibilities and translating discussion into action. 

2. Aligning around shared objectives

One of the barriers faced by the network was the absence of a single, shared strategy or policy objective that all anchor partners were mandated to deliver against. During the network’s early years, a series of reorganisations across both NHS and local authority footprints meant that partners operated across multiple administrative and governance boundaries.

As one participant reflected:

“If it’s a metropolitan authority or a single city, there is usually some core strategy document that everybody’s working towards. We had about six for every issue.”

Although the network had agreed priority areas, there was no foundational “opportunity analysis” or evidence-led report commissioned by the network itself that could act as a shared mandate in the absence of a single external strategy.  Recognising the value of a shared framework early on can help networks align action, prioritise collectively, and support partners in turning discussion into impact.

3. Navigating competing decision-making forums 

The network operated alongside multiple, overlapping forums across the region. Some of these held formal authority or decision-making power over the same policy areas the anchor network sought to influence.

At times, this made it harder to move from discussion to action. One important insight was the value of clarifying early on what is within the network’s influence and what lies elsewhere. Being clear about each workstream’s scope of influence helps build momentum and ensures discussions translate into tangible initiatives.

4. Measuring impact effectively

The Bay Anchor Network developed a reporting process for partners to track the embedding of anchor practices, using an Anchor Collaborative reporting sheet aligned with the Anchor Charter which was filled in by “champions” within each organisation.  Although partners engaged in this process it was found to be time consuming, and in general the findings from the reporting were primarily used to identify gaps and opportunities rather than to measure impact and progress over time. 

The network also agreed on a series of overarching metrics. However, without clear ownership or integration into decision-making, these metrics were not fully used to inform priorities or determine project direction. 

This experience highlighted the importance of designing measurement approaches that are practical, clearly owned, and directly linked to network goals, so that learning and evidence can actively support decision-making and continuous improvement.

Key lesson for others

1. Relationships are key 

One of the key strengths of the network team was taking the time to build real meaningful relationships with all partners which turned out to be vital to getting buy-in and securing the continued commitment of key individuals. 

2. Shared Ownership

Workstreams need to be led by different subject matter experts, and leadership should be shared across the network, as opposed to one individual/ organisation hosting all of them. This encourages greater ownership of the work and helps drive initiatives forward. Having multiple workstream leaders also reduces the risks of over-reliance on one central coordinator who may not always be on hand.  

3. Meeting style

Traditional monthly meetings can turn into a comfortable space for interested individuals to talk and share learning about subjects they care about, but without intentional design, they may not always generate tangible outputs. A key learning from the network is that in order to maximise impact, networks may benefit from combining regular online meetings with purposeful, in-person forums or workshops. Bringing people together can create space for partners to build relationships, bring in expert perspectives to challenge assumptions, showcase examples of good practice, and translate discussion into actionable projects.

Bridge into Wind-Down

As the network matured, the insights and lessons gathered from its workstreams helped shape decisions about how to maximise impact going forward. External factors, such as reductions in the ICB budget and changes to the scope of local partnerships, led to the decision to intentionally wind down the network, and transition the energy, relationships, and learning built through the network into new, more sustainable partnership arrangements. Framing the wind-down in this way ensured that the value generated over the network’s lifetime could continue to benefit local communities.

The Bay Anchor Network demonstrates what can be achieved when local organisations come together with shared purpose and commitment. From improving procurement practices to promoting staff wellbeing and tackling inequality, the network delivered tangible outcomes while also creating a rich foundation of learning. Its story highlights the importance of relationships, shared ownership, and adaptability, offering practical insights for other networks seeking to collaborate effectively. Even as the network concludes, the partnerships, experience, and momentum it fostered continue to influence future initiatives, showing that the impact of collaboration can extend far beyond the life of a single network.