I have written before that I have been really impressed since I came down to the area about some of the beautiful sights in Plymouth, especially around the waterfront (it is after all branded as Britain's Ocean City), but I certainly wasn't aware of all of the claims to fame. Here are a few of my favourites:
- Plymouth's Royal William Yard is home to the largest collection of Grade 1 Listed naval buildings in Europe - now a cultural hotspot for bars, restaurants and art galleries
- Plymouth has the highest concentration of cobbled streets in England
- Plymouth is the largest fishing port in England with more fish landed here in 2012 than in any other port
- Plymouth city centre was heralded 'beautiful' and 'heroic' by TV's Kevin McCloud writer and television presented best know for his work on the Channel 4 series Grand Designs
- Plymouth is the greenest city in the UK with 40% of the city being green space
- Plymouth University's Marine Building is home to the move advanced wave tank in the country
- Plymouth Gin is distilled in Plymouth's Black Friars Distillery, which is the oldest working gin distillery in England
- Plymouth is home to the largest Naval Base in Western Europe, HMNB Devonport
- In one day, the Plymouth Wrigley's factory produces over 3 million packets of chewing gum
Highlights of the Week - 20th June 2014 (@jeclo)
Highlights of the Week 1: Staff Brief delivered with added hay fever is much better than no staff brief at all!
I have got caught out this year. I try and avoid medication and hence wait until the last minute before I start to take any hay fever tablets each year. I got the timing exactly right last year, but this year I've just not managed to get myself sorted in time; no nasal spray no pills.
So on top of an annoying, but very minor cold, a weekend spent on top of Dartmoor and walking along the Avon estuary to Bantham during very high pollen conditions, meant that I have been struggling this week.
I have felt underpowered with a slow operating brain, so trying to be uplifting and inspiring has been (more of) a challenge this week! However, we still had staff briefing and we were again discussing key issues that will affect patients and staff alike, not least our journey towards integration of commissioning and provision.
Staff were understandably worried about another potential upheaval ahead, but there does seem to be strong support for the importance of what we are doing. And at least those that turned up did have another opportunity to hear and discuss face to face with members of the Locality Leadership Team.
Highlights of the Week 2: One Plymouth looks at the future of the Plymouth Plan. What will we offer and ask?
One Plymouth is the strategic partnership in the City where key organisations come together to talk about how to best support the growth and future direction for Plymouth. The quarterly meetings look at a small range of topics, mostly focussed around the Plymouth Plan - the view of the City's development produced by Plymouth City Council.
This week we were discussing how we best understand the "offer and ask" that we each have. What is it we (as organisations) offer to the City and what is it that we would ask the City to support? For example, how can the naval dockyard support future prosperity and what can the City do to support the dockyard's needs in return.
There was a very positive feel to the meeting and across a range of topics a sense that, more than ever, given the financial climate we are working in, we need to be keenly supporting each other as we look to a vibrant and sustainable future.
Highlights of the Week 3: Caring Plymouth Scrutiny welcomes the direction we are taking on integration and our community services strategy
I haven't always enjoyed attending Overview and Scrutiny Committees; I can recall some hugely challenging discussions in different parts of the country in years gone by, but attending the Caring Plymouth Committee this week didn't feel like it should be full of dread.
We were presenting two items on our community services strategy and, jointly with Plymouth City Council, the closely linked business case to support integrated commissioning and integrated provision of health and social care services.
There were challenging questions; quite rightly councillors wanted to know how the plans would affect health inequalities and how they linked to Public Health as well as a more detailed understanding of the key challenges. But overall, there was support for the direction of travel and the plans we presented. They have been shared with the Health and Wellbeing Board and supported there, so it does feel like we have a momentum in the right direction - just need to make sure we now deliver!
Highlights of the Week 4: Our response to the Fairness Commission in Plymouth will be joint with commissioning colleagues in social care
Dame Suzi Leather led the Fairness Commission in Plymouth, working with the community to define what fairness means to the City and the action that is required to bring about a fairer society. You can read the final report here Final Report, which contains 85 recommendations for different Boards/ Committees to take forward.
Our Locality Board has considered the report and endorsed our positive response to work collectively on the recommendations it makes. However, we have now gone a step further and agreed to put in a joint response with colleague commissioners in social care. If we are to be joint commissioners we need to think and act in that way. This is one very small example of how we can do that, but it is great to have a real intent to drive those tiny gestures.
Highlights of the Week 5: Our Programme Office has worked to define its key purpose and its core offer to the organisation
Our Programme Office has not necessarily been the most inspiring place to work over the first part of the CCG's development. As we worked to sort out a whole host of new operating models, processes and practices, the Programme Office was the place that kept getting asked to pull off miracles, rescue off track processes, respond at the last minute and then see all the effort they had put in seemingly wasted as we decided to go off in a different direction to the one we had thought was fit for purpose the week before.
The Team are a resilience bunch though (there are 3 of them) and increasingly people have realised the value they bring to the organisation in giving us some structure, creating the foundations for our delivery and in supporting people who are struggling with capacity or capability.
One of the key issues for them has been a sense that they are at the whim of the rest of the organisation, reacting to whatever others decide. So we have done some work on their key purpose over the last 6 weeks, moving from an endless list of tasks that they complete to a set of five key areas of business that describe the work that they do. Early days, but feels like this act of setting out a direction will have a profound effect on how the team sees itself and therefore how the organisation sees them. The first step is to be clear on what is their unique contribution.
And the most important Plymouth fact? There are 52 other Plymouths in the world, but only one Original.....!
Jerry Clough is Chief Operating Officer for Northern, Eastern and Western Devon Clinical Commissioning Group. He is also Locality Managing Director for the Western Locality of the CCG covering Plymouth and the surrounding areas of South Hams and West Devon.
Previously Jerry has been a Chief Executive and Finance Director in the NHS before spending several years running his own business driving programmes of change and delivering executive coaching and team and Board development.
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