Weeknotes s03e29
TL;DR: Modelling bed demand for Winter. Trying to use Make Time techniques. More collarbone woes.
[week ending 28/08/2021]
Back from holiday/helping on scout camp and back to 100mph.
Who did you talk to outside of your organisation? First chat with Adam from NELCSU who represents the Northants GPs regarding IG. He’s joined the System IG group that we had later in the week, so it was good to have a chat about the scope of his role ahead of that.
Chat with Indi Singh about Provider Collaboratives and time management techniques. Lots to follow up about Provider Collaboratives to learn more about the potential to think about patient pathways in a more hosistic way.
What do you wish you could have changed? I had a CT scan which shows my collar bone has still not healed — it is now three months since I did it. Was so hopeful I could start back on rehabilitaiton and get back to cycling, but sadly not.
What did you learn? I had a call with a member of the REACH network, and heard about the Immigration Health Surcharge, which I wasn’t even aware of previously.
We had a joint Board Development session this week, discussing the Acute sector’s role in the emerging Northamptonshire ICS.
What did you enjoy? I chaired the NGH EPR Programme Board this week. After a few weeks away, it was great to see progress continuing to be made. Planning for the EPMA procurement is going well and there’s some good preparatory work taking place for making the most of existing systems and aligning with KGH ahead of the new PAS system being procured and implemented next year.
It was the EMOC Board (East Midlands One Care) this week. This is the project to join up the shared care record projects taking place in each county. I’ve found it hard to get enough time to get up to speed on what it actually is, but think I’ve finally got a decent grip and we had some really good debates about the region-wide HIMSS-lite CCMM (Continuity of Care Maturity Model) assessment that was completed recently, and we also made some decisions about the approach to financing, procurement and approvals. We also learnt that one member of the Board has a piano in his work office, so hopeful for a bit of tinkling to close out the meeting next time.
What did you achieve? A lot of the week was taken up by getting up to speed with the Winter Modelling project — trying to estimate the bed demand over the coming winter, based on a number of variables. Ordinarily, the previous 12 months gives a reasonable baseline to work from, but the pandemic has made all the data not suitable, so we’re using the 2019 calendar year as a basis and then adding on assumptions from there. There’s been a challenge to get the data to align for both Trusts, and credit to all who’ve been involved this week digging back into historical data to help us get there and mapping out some different scenarios. This won’t be perfect, and as we know, all models are wrong, but some are useful. We’ve got some more sessions next week to review the output, which will be to look at the bed deficit (it won’t be a surplus that’s for sure), and then work out what actions can be taken in a priority to fill the gaps or work with partners to put plans in place.
We had some data errors in one of the returns we make nationally, so I spent a bit of time working with the team understanding the analysis done to understand the cause and the steps put in to fix the issue.
What are you looking forward to next week?
- More Winter Modelling
- Conversation with one of our local Universities
- A session on the Group Digital Strategy KPIs — checking in on progress in getting all of them defined and into monitoring
Interesting Stuff read/consumed since last weeknote:
- Global Majority: we need to talk about labels such as ‘BAME’. Prompted by Andre’s interview with Dr Sonji Clarke where she used the phrase Global Majority. “Global Majority is a collective term that first and foremost speaks to and encourages those so-called, to think of themselves as belonging to the majority on planet earth. It refers to people who are Black, African, Asian, Brown, dual-heritage, indigenous to the global south, and or, have been racialised as ‘ethnic minorities’. Globally these groups currently represent approximately eighty per cent (80%) of the world’s population, making them the global majority now, and with current growth rates, notwithstanding the Covid-19 pandemic, they are set to remain so for the foreseeable future. Understanding that singular truth may shift the dial, it certainly should permanently disrupt and relocate the conversation on race”
- Quite a few weeknotes: Notes 2021, episode 7 by Giuseppe Sollazzo. Nice to have a mention of bed tetris this week! Weeknotes s01e15 by Jas Sagoo. This Weeks This Week by Amy Freeman. 3.28 — weeknotes by Mark Lumley.
- The Empty Chair by Chris Tiplady.
- Phoenix Software — Case Study: Kettering General Hospital. Great to see this out in the wild and sharing the good work the team have been doing.
- Make space for leadership by Mark Chillingworth
- https://www.twomedics.com/ podcast
- A good thread on Twitter from Aastha Guar about questions asked to management candidates.
Books finished since last weeknote:
- Fiction: The Goldfinish by Donna Tartt. Long, but brilliant book. Really loved it, and given Tartt has only written three books, I felt I had to savour it.
- Fiction: The Year of the Runaways by Sunjeev Sahota. Really interesting book, with lots of bits about Sikhism that I didn’t know about and I’d like to learn more about.
- Fiction: The Vinyl Detective — Written in Dead Wax (Vinyl Detective 1) by Andrew Cartmel. Picked this up last year as part 1 of what looks like 5 books currently. Made me think my vinyl game is very amateurish.
- Fiction: Girlfriend in a Coma by Douglas Copeland. Started great and wanted it to develop, but was a very lame an unsatisfactory end in my view.
- Fiction: Echo Park by Michael Connelly.
- Non-Fiction: The Nice Types of Leader by James Ashton.
- Non-Fiction: 50 People Every Christian Should Know: Learning from Spiritual Giants of the Faith by Warren W. Wiersbe
- Non-Fiction: Make Time by Jake Knapp and John Jeratsky. Really simple but impactful book. I’ve tried to start following the principles this week. It encourages you to think about the highlight event for your day — the thing that meets your criteria of being most urgent/satisfying/joyful, then set aside some time to complete it, and during that time be wholly focused on the completion avoiding all distraction, then refect on how that went. I had a conversation with someone this week about the hour or so I try block in my diary each day and how reading this book helped me to realise that spending that time on catching up on emails is not likely to be the best use of my time. Of course, creating time for emails is necessary, but for the most part it’s not going to be the most impactful contribution I can make in that hour.
Currently Reading:
- Non-Fiction: The 3D Leader by Terrence Mauri. Reading this for the NGH-KGH leadership bookclub. Only a couple of chapters in, but not inspiring me so far.
- Fiction: The Hawk and the Dove by Penelope Wilcock. Lent to me by a colleague last year — finally got round to starting it.
