Internal consultancy services

Supporting informed decisions across NSW Health and other government agencies.

NSW Health agencies and government partners face complex decisions about policy, programs and service delivery. Making the right decisions requires balancing evidence, experience, system performance, value for money and long‑term impact.

Our internal consultancy services help teams navigate this complexity. We partner with agencies to understand challenges, explore options and deliver practical, decision-ready solutions. Our multidisciplinary teams provide end-to-end support, bringing together evidence, data and analytics with lived, clinical and operational insights, supported by expertise in evaluation, economics and strategy.

Our expertise

Explore how we deliver tailored solutions aligned to agency needs and NSW Government priorities.

Why work with us

Health system expertise

Build internal capability

Partner for impact

Flexible, scalable support

How to work with us

Informing decisions with evidence

We provide rapid evidence summaries to support policy, program and service delivery decision-making. Our approach is tailored to the urgency, complexity and context of each decision. Rapid evidence reviews inform decisions, rather than provide formal recommendations.

What this includes

  • PICO-driven evidence questions with transparent inclusion criteria.
  • Narrative synthesis of key findings, with supporting study details.
  • Peer‑reviewed and grey literature.
  • Transparent methods and limitations.

Explore all evidence checks published on the Critical Intelligence Unit website for use across the health system.

What this enables

Supports timely, evidence‑informed decision‑making in fast‑moving policy and service contexts, where clarity, responsiveness and relevance are critical.

Developing decision support tools

We provide data analytics and dynamic simulation modelling to help teams test policy and operational changes in a safe virtual environment, before making changes in the real world.

What this includes

  • Clinical and system analytics.
  • Analysis of clinical variation, quality outcomes, patient cohorts and care pathways
  • Patient journey mapping, outcome prediction and forecasting
  • Dynamic simulation modelling to test ‘what‑if’ scenarios
  • Collaborative development of virtual system models with users.
  • A modular modelling approach, enabling analysis of specific areas of the system.

What this enables

Enables agencies to better understand risk, test options safely, and make confident decisions before implementing change.

Designing health services around experience and evidence

We support the design and improvement of services, models of care and system innovations by bringing together the perspectives of consumers, people with lived experience, communities, providers and system leaders. We partner to ensure approaches are inclusive, locally informed, and aligned with system priorities, guided by ethical, respectful and culturally safe practices.

What this includes

  • Design and engagement activities with consumers, communities, clinicians and health system stakeholders.
  • Structured approaches to incorporating lived and experiential insights into service and policy design.
  • Qualitative data collection and analysis.
  • Integrating experiential insights with other forms of evidence.
  • Developing outputs tailored to different audiences and requirements.

What this enables

This supports a clear understanding of the needs, priorities, opportunities and trade-offs, informing service design, innovation and continuous improvement.

"A wonderful experience and outcomes; we would highly recommend engaging the ACI for future consumer jury opportunities."

– Adapted consumer jury for HealthShare NSW

Monitoring and evaluating programs

We deliver end-to-end monitoring and evaluation services aligned with NSW Government and Treasury requirements. This supports evidence-informed policy, program and investment decisions.

What this includes

  • Evaluation planning and design, monitoring frameworks, implementation and reporting.
  • Assessing program implementation (process evaluation), effectiveness and outcomes (outcome and impact evaluation), and efficiency and value for money (economic appraisal).
  • Working with agencies to generate evidence to address core investment questions.

What this enables

High-quality evaluation supports continuous improvement, informs investment and policy decisions, and provides accountability for the use of public resources. Our evaluations support business cases; program assurance; spending review processes; and decisions to scale, redesign or cease initiatives.

Assessing value for money

We provide economic analysis and advice to support value‑based decision‑making across health policy and service delivery. Our approach ensures investment decisions are robust, transparent, and aligned with government priorities.

What this includes

  • Developing business cases aligned to government requirements.
  • Cost–benefit and economic analyses to assess value for money.
  • Assessing economic impacts to support policy and service proposals.
  • Presenting assumptions, limitations and implications.
  • Health economics and value assessment.

What this enables

This supports informed investment decisions, helping agencies to understand value, compare options and allocate resources effectively.

"The ACI team were flexible and worked with us to manage emerging issues. Really happy with the final product – a useful document to provide us with a blueprint moving forward in a very complex space."

– Monitoring and Evaluation Framework for the NSW Ministry of Health

Shaping strategy and policy

We provide strategic, policy and service reviews, by bringing together multiple sources of evidence to inform planning, reform and continuous improvement. Our approach ensures strategic decisions are grounded in robust insight and aligned with system priorities.

What this includes

  • Strategic and service reviews to assess performance, gaps and opportunities for improvement.
  • Developing policy briefs and system intelligence to inform decision‑making.
  • Designing research agendas and system strategies aligned to priority areas.
  • Evidence synthesis from data, research and experiential insights.

What this enables

This provides a clear, evidence‑informed foundation for setting direction, helping agencies prioritise resources, respond to emerging challenges and drive sustainable system improvement.

Translating insights to support decision-making

We support the translation of complex evidence, data and experiential insights into clear, actionable recommendations tailored to the decision context. Our approach focuses on distilling what matters most, making trade‑offs explicit, and supporting decisions that are practical, feasible and aligned with system priorities.

What this includes

  • Synthesis of insights across evidence, data and experiential sources.
  • Developing decision‑focused outputs tailored to different audiences.
  • Outlining options, trade‑offs and implications to support informed choices.
  • Translating complex findings into clear, accessible language for policy, program and service audiences.
  • Facilitating decision‑making discussions and workshops.
  • Support to embed insights into practice.

What this enables

This supports timely and confident decision‑making, ensuring insights are clearly understood, interpreted and translated into practical actions that improve policy, programs and service delivery.

Building capability in design, implementation and change

We design and deliver standard and tailored capability development programs to support teams to apply design, implementation and change approaches within their local context. We focus on building practical skills, confidence and a shared understanding, enabling teams to deliver sustainable change and continuous improvement.

What this includes

  • Tailored programs, practical tools, training and coaching to help teams design, implement and sustain change.
  • Guidance on best practice approaches that teams can apply and adapt in real‑world settings.
  • Facilitating knowledge sharing and peer-to-peer learning.
  • Adapting approaches to specific program, policy or service contexts.

What this enables

This enables teams to apply structured, evidence-informed approaches to design and change, strengthening internal capability and supporting ongoing improvement. The skills and knowledge are transferable, contributing to broader service and system-level improvement.

How to work with us

  • Get in touch

    We start with an initial conversation to understand your decision need, context and the challenge you’re looking to address.

  • Scope the work

    We work with you to clarify purpose, audience, timelines and deliverables from the outset.

  • Tailored proposal

    We develop a proportionate scope of work that is fit-for-purpose and aligned to the decision context and priorities.

  • Collaborative delivery

    We work with your team to deliver clear, practical and usable outputs that support decision-making and implementation.

  • Ongoing support

    We remain available to support interpretation, refinement and application of findings as needed.

    Our service supports NSW Government objectives to strengthen internal public sector capability and ensure the appropriate, value-based use of external consultants.

Who we work with

We work with policy, program and service delivery teams across NSW Health, including branches, agencies, local health districts and statewide programs.

Our work also includes referrals through established NSW Government mechanisms, such as the NSW Government Expert Advisory Network, and collaboration with other Australian Government health agencies.

Contact us

Email ACI-CIU-Consultancy@health.nsw.gov.au

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