This chapter describes a 15-month pilot of an innovative alternative to traditional 10-minute GP consultations. Shared medical appointments (SMA) brought together patients with chronic (non-cancer) pain who had appointments together at their GP surgery. SMAs were facilitated by a multidisciplinary team (MDT): a GP, a health and well-being practitioner, a practice administrator and, on occasion, a psychologist or pharmacist. This joint facilitation offered support that is difficult to achieve within normal appointments. The pilot was grant funded (£75k) and this was secured through a collaborative bid involving a social enterprise, a higher education institute and an independent consultant. An exploration of the negotiation and contracting element of the consultancy framework proposed by Brady and Varkonyi-Sepp (A framework for consultancy in health psychology. In R. Brady, J. Varkonyi-Sepp & J. Smith (Eds.), The Palgrave handbook of consultancy in health psychology. Palgrave Macmillan, 2025), the chapter focuses particularly on the informal and relational aspects of consultancy work. It describes how different spaces at different stages of the project were created to support negotiation and (re)contracting, describing the realities of how this can work during complex consultancy engagements. Written from the perspective of a psychology-informed consultant in health, there is reflection on how strong and open relationships are key to getting the balance right between formal and informal contracting, enabling and supporting collaborative and innovative work.