Weeknotes s03e13
TL;DR: Using the Thinking Environment in 1–2–1s. Spending more time in ICS-land.
[week ending 09/04/2021]
Who did you talk to outside of your organisation? I joined the newly established Elective Care Board which is a cross-system group which is coordinating the elective reset across Northants.
I also joined a system group looking at the new NHS England planning guidance and our response to it.
What would you have liked to do more of? We had some excellent journey mapping work done in relation to complex discharges. The output is really rich, and I’ve not really had the chance to get into the report and think about what we do with the findings. Noel and I had a brief chat about it, but the workshop where we were going to talk about it to all parties was cancelled due to poor attendance.
What do you wish you could have changed? That creating a System Patient Transfer List (PTL) is going to be a lot more tricky than I initially thought (again this is a requirement from the planning guidance). I naively thought that we’d be able to pull a few different data sets from the providers in the county and visualise it in a nice way and that would be the start. There’s going to be a lot more to provide “common tracking of waiting lists; clinical review and prioritisation; dynamic planning of elective capacity and shared capacity, demand and monitoring data”. The frustrating thing about this is that every health system across the country (29) is going to be looking at this and we’re all going to create something different — this seems to me a missed opportunity for some national infrastructure — even if it is small building blocks that can be used flexibly, or a coordinated supplier response with components awarded out across several pieces, just something that demonstrates some strategic thinking. Us all doing the same thing in a very short space of time is going to end up with 29 sub-optimal solutions. Annoying.
What did you learn? I joined my first System Transformation Board. I updated on the thoughts from the Digital Transformation Board about the need to review our strategy to align with the white paper and the ICS priorities. As the Digital lead for the system, I’m still finding my feet and getting to know various people, but can see that there’s a lot to do.
What did you enjoy? I had 1–2–1s with Ian, Phil and Kirstie this week. Those type of meetings have been a bit patchy so far this year, so was good to establish a new rhythm and catch up on what what’s going on and what’s needed. I introduced Kirstie to the template that I’ve been using for a few years now that came from the Thinking Environment stuff by Nancy Kline.
I had a session with a colleague from the KGH BAME Network this week. As I talked about last week, I keep a couple of hours in my diary for colleagues to come and talk about what they like (a summary is also in the April edition of the NGH BAME Network newsletter). We talked about career aspirations and creating a good application form/CV — which is a subject close to my heart.
What did you achieve? We got a bit nearer to bridging the affordability gap on the NHS EPR Business Case, thanks to some movement on a number of fronts. Feeling confident I’ve got it on the agenda for the Finance Committee and a special session of the Board this month. Feet don’t fail me now!
I created the first version of an investigation report. I started the week feeling quite anxious about what was to be done during the week, but with the help of several colleagues have ended it, feeling like there’s a decent first draft in place that we can start using.
With Ian and Phil, we planned the Digital Town Hall next week where we’ll be officially launching the Group Digital Strategy.
What are you looking forward to next week?
- Interviews for the NGH Digital Director.
- Attending my first NHCP Partership Board
- Attending my first East Midlands Local Health and Care Record (LHCR) Board meeting
Interesting Stuff read/consumed:
- Weeknotes: week 23 — Services not solutions by Neil Lawrence. Admiring the honesty in this why something failed to be delivered when expected. Bravo.
- Don’t bother with an MBA..... build a business by one of my ex-bosses Rachel Murphy.
- How to Spend Way Less Time on Email Every Day. Nice to see another endorsement of the piler school of thought when it comes to email (as a opposed to filers). Did turn off Outlook notifications this week and have really tried to check emails less frequently.
- Designing digital health documents by Jim Richie. So much good stuff in here to draw upon. Really interesting take on Better not meaning Faster which we’ve talked about “Time taken and clicks needed should not be ignored, but if a new document / process takes as long as the previous whilst returning more meaningful and reusable information then comparing solely on time to complete is not fair. Quality matters, quality helps the patient, quality leads to efficiency for all users.” “Wherever possible develop generic documents with a common core that serves all users. Reuse components between documents to further build familiarity. Only when there is agreement about what constitutes a de minimus piece of documentation that all services will accept should customisation even be considered.”
Books finished this week:
- Fiction: The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. Really brilliant. Deserves every acolade and position in the best-sellers list.
- Non-Fiction: None
Currently Reading:
- Non-Fiction: Parliament: The Biography, Vol. 1 — Ancestral Voices. Making a bit of progress now. Just keep reminding myself that there’s Vol 2 waiting in the wings!
- Non-Fiction: An Introduction to Digital Healthcare in the NHS: Second Edition by Gary McAllister. I wish I’d been given this when I started at KGH 2 years ago (was my 2 year anniversary of moving into the Acute world this week).
- Non-Fiction: Radical Candor by Kim Scott. Reading this for the NGH-KGH Leadership Bookclub. Really small text. Hated the preface, but enjoying the first few chapters.
- Fiction: None
