The best healthcare advice doesn't have to cost a fortune

A few years ago, I had a conversation with a director of a small, independent clinic. They were facing a pivotal moment; a point where the decisions made, or not made, had the potential to impact the very existence of the clinic. They needed expert input. Not a project. Not a long drawn out engagement. Just a clear-headed, experienced perspective from people who had lived their challenge or seen this kind of thing before.

What they did instead, because traditional, “big” consultancy wasn't an option at the time, was try to muddle through. They took advice where they could, sometimes at huge expense, and did the best they could.  It took longer, cost more, had many false starts and, no doubt, caused more anxiety than it should have.

That conversation has stayed with me. Not because it was unusual, but because it wasn't. I've heard versions of it dozens of times.

Big consulting wasn't built for everyone

There's a quiet but significant problem in healthcare consulting. The organisations that most need expert strategic advice — independent clinics, small group practices or private practitioners, emerging health-tech companies, and even health insurers building out clinical governance or quality frameworks — are often the ones least able to access it.

The expertise exists. There are exceptional people out there with deep healthcare knowledge and real-world experience. The problem is the model through which that expertise gets packaged and sold — one that has historically been designed for large health systems with large budgets and an appetite for large commitments. Large fees, minimum engagements, complex contracts.

The result is a market that's been inadequately served. And that gap has real consequences for organisations trying to do the right thing without the guidance to do it well.

I started NewCourse Healthcare (NCH) because this genuinely bothered me

When I set up NewCourse Healthcare, part of what was driving me was frustration. I’d spent years working with hospitals across the world from Latin America to the Far East, and across Europe and Africa. I’d seen brilliant clinicians and talented managers trying to navigate genuinely difficult situations without adequate support, not because good advice wasn’t available somewhere in the world, but because people did not know how to access it. They also feared complex, expensive engagements that would not work for them as individuals.

The early days confirmed what I suspected. There was real appetite for a different model; one that was expert-led, practical, and genuinely flexible. The challenge was building something that delivered senior-level thinking without the overhead structures that made it prohibitively expensive for most organisations to access.

What makes our approach different has always been the calibre of the people involved. The NCH team of associates brings together clinicians, strategists, governance specialists, and digital health experts — people who have held senior roles, led complex programmes, and worked across health systems on multiple continents. We don’t just have knowledge borne from theory, we have perspective that was earned in real practice. We are a team of people who have faced the same pressures and decisions that our clients are navigating now.

NCH still does that work. Properly scoped engagements, hands-on delivery, capability building across some remarkable organisations globally. That remains at the heart of what I do. But what also became clear over time is that the organisations most urgently in need of help are often the ones that can’t wait for a project to be scoped or procured or didn’t need a project at all. They need the right expertise, quickly, and on terms that actually work for them.

With experience, I’ve refined my thinking on this. And what has emerged — what I’m now formalising as NCH MicroConsult — is a direct answer to the question that came from all those early conversations: how do I make senior healthcare expertise accessible to every organisation that needs it? MicroConsult isn’t a replacement for the broader NCH work; it’s the answer to a different and equally important question.

So here's what we've built and what makes it different

‘Flexible’ is one of those words that gets used a lot in consulting and usually means something like: we’ll adapt our standard engagement model slightly, if you really push us on it. That’s not the flexibility I’m talking about.

Genuinely flexible means: you should be able to access expert input for a single focused session when that's what you need. It means a structured retainer that gives you ongoing access without the uncertainty of a blank-cheque engagement. It means the ability to build a panel of advisors — clinical, operational, governance, digital — configured around your specific situation, without having to hire a firm to do it for you.

It also means transparent pricing. One of the things I’ve always found slightly baffling about the consulting world is the reluctance to tell people what things cost until you’ve had three conversations and a scoping meeting. With MicroConsult, the starting point is a single hour of work and prices are clearly published. Clients will be able to configure specific services online and get an instant quote. Clear, transparent, and a figure you can actually plan around. No complex contracting. No waiting. Just get started.

Embracing the power of AI alongside our real experiences

A word on AI because it would be odd not to mention it. The traditional consulting model has long relied on juniors doing the analytical heavy lifting, with senior partners adding a layer of oversight and sign-off. AI is now challenging that dynamic in ways that will reshape the industry. But what it can’t replicate is the judgement that comes from having actually been there: managing a failing service, restructuring a clinical team, launching a new care model in a market you’ve never worked in before. That kind of accumulated, frontline experience is precisely what NCH and MicroConsult is built on. I will talk more about our expertise and the role of AI in healthcare in future posts.

The future of healthcare isn't just about big acute hospitals

There's something else worth saying here. The organisations that will shape the next decade of healthcare delivery aren't just the big hospital groups. They're also the independent clinicians building new care models and creating differentiated solutions. The digital health companies working out how to translate a great idea into a safe, regulated product. The insurers who know that clinical quality and commercial performance are not in opposition, they just need the frameworks to align them.

These organisations need expert strategic and clinical thinking as much as anyone else. In some ways, more. They're often moving faster, with leaner teams, and less margin for getting it wrong.

The best healthcare advice shouldn't be a luxury. It should be something every organisation can access on their terms, at a price that makes sense, from people who have genuinely been there.

That’s what I’m building with our team: listening carefully, evolving the thinking, and designing something that I believe can genuinely make a difference to the organisations that need it most.