Rapid evaluation of the NHS Recovery Support Programme (RSP) in England: Implementing intensive national improvement support for challenged healthcare providers and systems

Launched in 2021, the Recovery Support Programme (RSP) provides mandated intensive improvement support to NHS healthcare providers and systems in England experiencing significant financial, quality or safety failings. The aim is to prevent further deterioration, embed improvement and to enable sustained stabilisation. We conducted a rapid multi-method study to evaluate the early implementation of the RSP to understand initial impact and identify further developments which could improve its delivery. We found that whilst the RSP is generally perceived as more supportive and less punitive than the special measures regime it replaced, there are areas where its delivery could be enhanced. There is variation in how the programme is delivered across regions and several core processes could be standardised to enable more structured assessment of system capability and development of capacity to support change. The presence of cross system collective leadership and external facilitation may be the core-enabling features necessary to embed improvement and enable sustained stabilisation in NHS organisations.