Weeknotes s06e08
TL;DR: Visiting Data Protection and Infrastructure Operations teams. Inviting Expression of Interest for Digital and Data Shadow Committee. Talking about working in the open.
[week ending 05/04/2024]
4 day week due to Bank Holiday
What do you wish you could have changed? This week I delivered a talk on An Introduction to Machine Learning for the Midlands Digital Skills Development Network. There were about 22 people on the call and it seemed to go down ok. I’m also due to talk about my journey in Allyship next month, and the disappointing thing is that currently there is zero take up. This feels extremely disappointing and but also sadly probably reflects how the issue of racism is not recognised by as many people as it needs to be. I strongly feel that cultural competence is a critical a skill in professional development, so feel disheartened by the current take up. If there are no takers, then I’ll need to do some thinking about how that is framed in the future.
What did you learn? I met with the Pastoral team, who support international colleagues joining the Trust. This includes all kinds of things, including advice on schools, accommodation, and cultural adjustment. Since March 2023, they’ve supported 141 international nurses and quite a few other professions too.
What did you enjoy? I met a colleague to talk about reflective practice/working in the open. We talked about how they might start working in this way. We did discuss if any of my team had started working in this way since I started, which I’m not aware of. This made me think about this in my previous role, and could think of Amir, Emily and Matthew who have been quite active.
I did two team visits this week — to the Data Protection and Infrastructure Operations teams. I really enjoyed the conversations, which were different in turn. The Data Protection team were extremely organised and had set out some things to discuss in retro format — what works/what could be better. We talked through the process of creating Subject Access Requests (SARs), which includes the team needing to access loads of our systems. There has been some good progress in sharing data with subjects electronically which the the team have been pleased about. We also talked about some of the frustrations with various bits of software including needing to be careful about the size of documents being downloading to avoid browsers crashing. We also talked about developing the content of the Town Hall meeting to be more applicable for all. There were also some good questions raised about migration/longer-term storage of data as part of our EPR programme as I heard that the team still access data from the Patient Administration System (PAS) before the one we currently use!
It was a great conversation with the Infrastructure Operations team. Similar to the Data Protection team, there is such a depth of experience and knowledge in this team, with many colleagues having been at the Trust for 10 years or longer. I heard about the different roles in the team, and their alignment to being proud public servants came out very strongly. We also talked about scale — the team manage over 1000 servers on behalf of the Trust. I got a visit round the QMC data centre, which was still undergoing some major work last time I visited, so was nice to see everything looking good.
What did you achieve? Simon and I did some work on some slides for next week’s Board Development session where I’ll be talking about our Cyber Security status. I’m really pleased with how the deck is currently developing.
This week I shared out the information for colleagues to indicate an expression of interest on becoming a member of the Shadow Committee for the Digital and Data Strategic Committee. I had a few conversations with some people who wanted to know more. There was a lesson in comms for me during this process, in that I think a few people interpreted the ask to be only for young people, which came from the quote on the first page I’d included from the Corporate Governance Institute:
A shadow board typically consists of 9 to 13 people from a cross-section of the business, and all are younger — either millennials or GenZers. The CEO usually sponsors the shadow board, and its primary purpose is to provide insight, feedback, and ideas to senior decision-makers in the company, representing their generation’s perspective. Shadow board members also learn about the company’s strategy and decisions so that they can share with their peers and network.
Source: What is a shadow board? — The Corporate Governance Institute
However, later in the document, it makes it clear that the selection criteria is extremely wide:
Expressions of interest will be assessed on:
- Other opportunities the individual is already involved with (to ensure that people selected as not the “usual suspects”)
- Wide divisional representation
- Wide professional representation
- Impact that this will have on an individual’s career development and future prospects
- Minimum of 1 and maximum of 2 people from Digital and Information (to provide domain knowledge to the shadow committee)
- How much development the individual has completed recently or is scheduled to commence (ideally selecting those who have not had significant investment)
- The collective diversity of the group
As a result of this misunderstanding, I provided some clarification during the week, but I realise I should have provided a one sentence summary at the start of the docuement to be clear that what we’re doing and our aims. I’m hoping that we get sufficient interest to train up the shadow committee in May/June and start a proper cycle as below in July.
Also:
- 1–2–1 with Ricardo
- Send out the Digital and Information monthly update weldon
- Chaired the ESR Manager Self Serve (MSS) project board. We went live with annual leave booking on 1 April, so this was a good opportunity to talk about what had gone well, any issues that have emerged and then a deep breath to ready for the next phase.
- Some discussions about our Cellular Pathology software
- Kick off meeting with PA consulting, who have been awarded a contract to help us with our financial sustainability programme
- We had a meeting with all Staff Network chairs/co-chairs and Executive Sponsors. The women’s network is just starting out and there are going to be some changes to the chairing of some networks over the coming months, so it was good to get a view on what is working now and what we need to do to support the critical work of the networks for the Trust
What are you looking forward to next week?
- Meeting with Kay to talk about the Digital and Information Monthly Update
- East Midlands Acute Providers meeting about our collective EPR goals
- Board Development — talking about Cyber Security
- 15-Steps challenge
Interesting Stuff read/consumed:
- Matt Edgar — Weeknote: 11 to 15 March 2024. Which led me to…
- Doing weeknotes by Giles Turnbull. This is a brilliant summary of why and how to do Weeknotes.
- Raj Bhopal: Delaying part of PHE’s report on covid-19 and ethnic minorities turned a potential triumph into a PR disaster.
Books finished since last weeknote:
- Fiction: Brick Lane by Monica Ali.
- Non-Fiction: Everything is Everything by Clive Myrie
Currently Reading:
- Non-Fiction: A Good Face for Radio: Confessions of a Radio Head by Eddie Mair
- Non-Fiction: Blind spots in the Bible by Adrian Plass
- Fiction: none
