Highlights of the Week - 9th May 2014

This week is all about the CCG's Individuals at the Centre Programme.  Friday was the showcase and graduation for a seven month learning set programme and a year long piece of development work focused on how we walk the talk of putting Individuals at the Centre of all our work.

I have been leading this work in the CCG with support from Tim Robson who runs the website www.nowshowup.com. Tim has been bringing his thinking and inspiration on brand to our CCG, running a set of half day development workshops, Leadership Team and Governing Body sessions and the four modules of our learning set programme.  Brand in this context isn't about logos, mission statements or strap lines, it is about whether organisations deliver on the promises they make to customers or not.  Apple do, Ryanair do (they don't promise a quality experience and you get what you know to expect), so how about the NHS? And how about NEW Devon CCG?

I have invested a lot in to making this programme happen and the learning sets, working with 5 teams who volunteered to apply to be participants, have been hugely enjoyable and rewarding.  The proposition was simply enough: we were going to give staff time to think about our values and to create 5 areas of excellence where we could show that we had put people at the heart of our processes.  We simply took the restrictions (real or imagined) off and let them get on with it.  There were mentors for each group (huge thanks to Chris, Laila and Helen who worked alongside Tim and I), but our job was to support the teams, not to guide or direct.

We kept saying "Trust the process" throughout the 7 months.  This applied as much to us (don't intervene, don't try and drive success) as to the teams who we encouraged to use Simon Sinek's Golden Circle Model (www.startwithwhy.com) where more time is spent thinking about why and how you are doing something than what you are doing - organisations get focused on the delivery plans and projects, so it was a huge challenge with only a few months to create a pocket of excellence for people to believe they had the time to deliberate their "why" at length.

So Tim and I arrive at the graduation ceremony and spend the morning helping the teams to be ready to present to their invited audience and 5 "Dragons" - John, Anne, Caroline, Annette and Lorna, members of the CCG's Governing Body.  We still had no idea what was in the presentations ("Trust the process".....) so energy and stakes were high.  What have they made of the time they have had?  The five highlights are brief snapshots of their projects.

Alongside their achievements was an amazingly rich set of stories about what they have gained personally from the programmes - from someone reinvigorated who was about to leave the NHS to two people who have got new jobs in other organisations.  Very moving descriptions of personal growth.

Highlights of the Week - 9th May 2014 (@jeclo)

Highlights of the Week 1:IATC Wheelchair Users Project-Young wheelchair users in Plymouth present to receive their graduation certificates!
In some senses this was the most straightforward of projects in terms of the basic proposition.  We had heard some poor stories from the parents and carers of young wheelchair users in Plymouth about their experience of the wheelchair service and the team wanted to do something to improve that.  The remarkable story, though, is about their relationship and involvement with students from Woodlands School in Plymouth and the joint process of design.  And it was the students, not just the parents/carers who we worked with and listened to.

They truly placed 6 students at the heart of the project and based all their work on their input.  Their have been many spinoff benefits as they have gone on - money for a new wheelchair test track, including a place to practice getting in and out of transport with large and complex electric wheelchairs and working out how to solve the problem that if your wheelchair breaks down, you can't go to school because only one chair is approved for use on the school transport.

The students have been inspirational and have loved the experience too.  They have been to our offices (they wanted to meet in our work, rather than always at their school) and the team have shared plenty of food.  The lasting benefit? The team are determined to run the tender for wheelchair services based on the evaluation of the young students; a huge challenge, but the rewards will be equally huge.

The students were with us for the presentation and were very excited to receive their graduation certificates; a real highlight of the day!

Highlights of the Week 2: IATC Equality & Diversity Project.  This is their work youtu.be/MRbKt7KxpfI stunning (and Sam the videographer!)
Sam our videographer had been involved in several of the projects.  His work with this team is fantastic and you can see the result in the link above.  The team wanted to ensure that staff throughout the CCG really understood the protected characteristics and made these central to their work.  They wanted to go beyond this too and provide inspiration and leadership across a wider set of organisations.

The team struggled with changes to membership and were thinking about abandoning, but they reconfirmed their "why" and the importance of the work they had set out to achieve.  The real power of the story that sits behind the video is the work they did to create a huge range of relationships that led to finding volunteers representing all the protected characteristics to be part of their film.

People are interested (why wouldn't they be? A simple, but powerful few minutes) and this will reach far beyond the CCG.  Our job is to make sure all our staff see this video and reflect on what it means for them - great to have such a tool to enable the Governing Body to apply some leadership to that task.

Highlights of the Week 3: IATC Being Heard Project. Quietly revolutionising how we work with complainants central to the process in the CCG
Are patients central to the complaints process?  You would hope so; we have a team that spends a lot of time listening to and working to resolve patient queries and complaints.  But when first asked the question in one of the early workshops, the answer focused more on "it must do, our policy follows national best practice..." than on what we had done to really shine a light on that issue.

Halfway through this presentation, knowing that Penelope was the sole presenter on behalf of her team, I was wondering whether she was going to be able to keep the audience's attention (there had been plenty of emotion and tears earlier with the wheelchair users project, so momentum needed to be maintained!), but of course they had a wonderful trick up their sleeve with some acting of our of complaints process that grabbed the moment.

What does a complaint form look like if you invite someone to very clearly lay out what they think the key issues are and what they want done about them, rather than just sending us a story and inviting us to miss the key points as they see them?  How do we ensure that they get feedback not just about what we are going to do, but when it has been done too?  They have worked hard with complainants and Healthwatch to redesign what we do.

They have got national recognition and are off the present at a key national conference following an invitation.  They will go from strength to strength.

Highlights of the Week 4: IATC Being the Difference Project. Mobilised such enthusiasm and commitment from our "back office" Inspired!
This was the team I mentored, or more accurately this was the team I was meant to be mentoring.  We never quite managed to align diaries in between workshops so, apart from a number of individual conversations, they were on their own.

A team from across the CCG - 8 of them in all - who work in what would be described as the back office - Finance, administration, Governance, Programme Office and the Corporate Office.  They focused on one of the pieces of learning that Tim brought - that a brand is the product of a thousand small gestures, not a few big moments.

So they worked on a number of small changes that people could make to bring them more in touch with the importance of what we do, ultimately for patients.  They have surveyed staff views on how connected they are each week to direct patient care and how often they feel they make a difference; they have championed the CCG's Connect Programme where we offer 2 days for staff to work with local charities or voluntary sector groups linked to our work; they led the CCG's encouragement to make pledges for NHS Change Day and have taken it on themselves to present at team away days and events.

They want change agents in our organisation - people who will take their ideas and spread them wider.  They have 20 staff interested in that, so we are hugely excited to see where this takes us next-does feel like they have started a movement.

Highlights of the Week 5:IATC What About Me? project. The team have inspired each other and amazing stories from their patient support event
This team were a bit different to the others (they would say so too); they were very clear on why they wanted to work together as a four, but less clear on the area they would make a difference.  This really tested the "Trust the process" mantra as we were in module 3 before they started to solidify around some tangible work.

But it was a great example of how starting with Why and spending more time on that will make the 'how' and 'what' happen much more quickly.  In the end they pulled off a support event for people with psoriasis and eczema that had 60 attendees and some of the most compelling stories we heard all day; people who had lived with their condition for 20 years and never met other people to talk to; someone who found they were applying their cream in the wrong way and therefore getting very little benefit.  They had been for many years.

Their personal journeys were intense and lovely to see them revelling in every second of what they had achieved.  But the Dragons could really see the potential of commissioning a different type of service where people had the option of a group, community based treatment and approach that supported their emotional as well as medical needs as they recognised that sufferers can feel incredibly isolated. 

They definitely ended the day with a bang!

Highlights of the Week 6:(extra for one week only). Humbling and emotional feedback for me at the end of the IATC programme.  I was "all in"
I tend to be pretty confident about what I do at work and part of my job is to play that role.  But there was quite a lot at stake for me in the delivery of the programme and the organisation had given me plenty of freedom to design and run the development process and it would need to show results.  So I was definitely working with a bit more adrenalin than usual on Friday, speculating on the level of success that others would see.

The teams were all fantastic and had justified every ounce of investment made in them and every minute of time they had been given (the programme also generated over 500 hours of personal time within the projects).

And there was some lovely feedback from participants, the audience and the Dragons about what we had achieved and my part in that.  Very emotional, humbling and moving, but a really wonderful way to end the day, the week and the programme.

And now on to #IATC2, the plans for rollout within the CCG and for a patient safety and quality event on 29th May are already well advanced; can't wait!