Nutricia Homeward

Project Context

Nutricia Homeward secured one of the largest NHS contracts in recent decades, tasked with delivering medical nutrition services to 15 hospitals and 1,600 community patients across a wide geographic area. The scale, complexity, and tight contractual timescales of this project presented significant challenges. Nutricia engaged Nine Feet Tall to provide expert, dedicated project management during the crucial contract implementation and mobilisation period.

Pre-identified challenges to delivery included restrictive NHS timelines, limited access to existing process documentation due to legal constraints, and the need to align with a mid-project CRM system migration. Project success would require the setup of structured workstreams, clarity over roles and responsibilities, defined reporting requirements, and proactive risk management. Internal teams would be required to adapt quickly and work in an agile manner.

Project Delivery

Upon engagement, Nine Feet Tall inherited a project already six weeks underway. Delivery aims were to ensure compliant contracts with all NHS Trusts, deliver comprehensive HCP training and communications, recruit and onboard both temporary and permanent nursing staff, and complete onboarding for all community patients. Importantly, alongside this delivery it was crucial to maintain continuity of care, minimise disruption, and adhere to strict contractual and legislative requirements

Nine Feet Tall’s approach focused on establishing robust project governance and clear accountability. Core deliverables included: recommendations to improve project governance; defined project roles and responsibilities; development of a milestone plan and hospital go-live criteria; establishment of business readiness criteria and a detailed reporting schedule; and to provide weekly status reports, RAID log, KPI tracking, and a project close report.

Additional deliverables were agreed during implementation, such as stakeholder and process maps, impact assessments, FAQs, and data management principles, all designed to address emerging challenges and ensure smooth patient transitions.
Through consistent engagement and collaboration with key stakeholders and project sponsors, Nine Feet Tall were able to remain agile and continue to deliver the aims of the project whilst maintaining a focus on risk management, stakeholder engagement, and agile problem-solving.

Project Outcome

At project handover, Nine Feet Tall had achieved 100% completion of the first four key outputs All major contractual, regulatory, and operational milestones were met, including legally compliant contracts signed with all NHS Trusts; successful delivery of HCP training and communications; recruitment and onboarding of both temporary and permanent nursing staff; and substantial progress in onboarding community patients.

The management of this project was not without its challenges, such as dealing with a European stock shortage and alignment with a new CRM system. Despite this, the completion of the project results in thousands of patient records being validated and new patient calls completed, as well as the facilitation of the safe transition of patients from the outgoing supplier. The project was able to deliver all of this whilst achieving continuity of care, with minimal disruption to healthcare professionals, and strong alignment with both NHS and internal Nutricia requirements.

This engagement demonstrated the value of expert project management in navigating large-scale, high-stakes healthcare transitions, ensuring both patient safety and organisational success.