Back to weeknotes after a hiatus: 23 to 27 October 2023

I’m on the sofa (terrible posture) with a cup of coffee and my laptop typing out the first set of weeknotes I’ve published since the end of August. I didn’t mean to take a break, but it’s OK that I did.

As a recap, I write weeknotes for my own benefit, as a way of reflecting on how my work is going. I publish them for two reasons:

1. The obvious: some people might be interested.
2. Perhaps less obvious: knowing anyone might read this, even if they don’t, improves the quality of reflection.

Sometimes there are things I cannot write about, or things I have to refer to obliquely. If you’re a colleague reading this and find anything frustratingly cryptic, just ask me privately and I can probably say more.

Let’s grab a bunch of stretching questions from Sam Villis’s definitive weeknote styles and start answering.

What did you enjoy?

A conversation with Keisha, who leads the NHS England project and programme management profession, about my experience on the Project Leadership Programme. I’m not a project or programme management professional but I tried to make the most of the course and learned lots that I could apply to my work.

Joining more than 200 of my NHS England colleagues on a digital accessibility lunch and learn. I hope we will take seriously our obligation to meet WCAG 2.2 AA as part of government’s accessibility requirements.

Presenting to the Access to Urgent Care Board on the work our digital teams have done to integrate 111 online with the NHS App. If you’re one of the 30 million adults in England who has the app on your phone, you can now more easily check your symptoms when you think you might need medical help. It’s not all about the app though; you can still use 111.nhs.uk on the web just as before, and there are improvements in the pipeline that will benefit app and web users alike.

At the board, I also trailed some work we’re starting off around the patient experience of first contact with the NHS for a new health concern. In London on Thursday, I met the team we’ve brought together to work on that, and was encouraged by their thoughful approach to a massive and complex set of questions.

What did you learn?

Across the week, I count up 11 one-to-one calls with colleagues, including members of my own team, my line manager, and peers leading on adjacent work in the organisation. In every one of them, I discovered something new that I could help with, or that changed the way I approach my own work.

I also learned more about various pieces of work from a couple of larger meetings. Everyone’s working hard and making progress on the things they committed to do.

On Friday, I  joined the show and tell for the Directory of Services team working on a platform rebuild. This will make it easier for staff in the NHS to direct people to the appropriate services, and support faster service innovation.

What would you have liked to do more of?

My catch-ups with my line manager always feel rushed. After our call on Monday I followed up with a list of things we hadn’t quite done justice to in our conversation. I need to work with the relevant diary managers to find a way of improving on this.

What do you wish you could have changed?

We have now completed our part of the “filling of posts” process following a three-way merger to create a new national organisation for the NHS. I’m still detecting anxiety and insecurity among a number of colleagues about their roles in the new NHS England structure. This week, an otherwise innocuous communication caused unnecessary tension between colleagues who we really need to work together for patients and frontline staff. I need to be mindful that the finer details of who does what really matter to people, and when that’s unclear, it manifests differently for each colleague.

What are you looking forward to next week?

A predominantly in-person meeting of the leadership team for Digital Urgent and Emergency Care – our first since everyone was confirmed in their roles. I want to use this to refocus on our shared objectives for the remainder of this financial year and beyond.

Also a meeting of a steering group for the Central Digital & Data Office’s Transforming Government Services team. This brings together digital leaders from a range of government departments, and I always find it helpful to hear what’s working well for others, and where we face common challenges in public service transformation.